\ 


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NX 


x 


SCENES    AND    THOUGHTS 


EUROPE. 


BY 


GEORGE   H.  CALVERT. 


NEW  YOKK 

G.  P.  PUTNAM  &  CO.,  10  PARK  PLAGE. 
1866. 


ENTERED  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1852,  oy 

GEORGE    H.    CALVERT, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  New  York. 


T.  B     SMITH,  Sterectyper. 
216  William 


PREFACE. 


CERTAIN  classes  of  books  are  such  favorites,  that  nearly 
the  whole  responsibility  of  publishing  them  should  be  borne 
by  the  public.  The  eagerness  with  which  they  are  read 
is  a  premium  on  their  production.  The  traveller  in  foreign 
lands  finds  the  privacy  of  his  letters  and  journal  encroached 
upon  while  writing  them,  by  the  thought  that  they  may  be 
turned  into  "  copy  "  for  the  printer.  To  so  many  others 
has  this  happened,  that  the  possibility  of  its  happening  to 
himself  cannot  be  kept  out  of  his  mind,  spotting,  it  may 
be,  the  candor  of  his  statements.  Afterwards,  when  he 
Aas  been  at  home  long  enough  for  the  incidents  of  his  jour- 
ney to  grow  by  distance  of  time  into  reminiscences,  what 
he  wrote  on  the  spot  comes  upon  him  with  unexpected 
freshness  and  distinctness.  Himself  gets  information  and 
entertainment  from  the  perusal  of  his  notes,  letters  and 
diary.  In  this  state  of  semi-  self-complacency,  the  public 
urgently  invites  him  to  its  broad  tables — invites  him 
through  the  kindness  wherewith  it  has  loaded  so  many  of 
his  book-blazoned  fellow-travellers.  He  begins  to  criticise 
his  manuscript ;  to  shape  it  by  excisions,  by  additions  ;  to 
calculate  quantity ;  to  confer  with  a  popular  publisher, — 
who  is  of  course  in  close  league  with  the  public, — until  at 
last,  he  finds  that  his  manuscript  has  been  made  away  with 
and  in  its  stead  he  has  proof  sheets.  His  private  doings 


vi  PREFACE. 


and  seeings,  and  thinkings,  and  feelings,  are  about  to  cease 
to  be  private  and  to  become  public,  and  himself  is  to  be 
thrust  in  every  page  personally  before  the  world  by  the 
printers,  notwithstanding  his  constant  endeavor  to  merge 
his  individuality,  and,  like  modest  editors,  to  multiply  and 
disperse  himself  by  means  of  the  indefinite  we.  He  is  in 
the  case  to  claim  the  favor  that  is  shown  at  a  feast  to  a 
guest  especially  summoned  for  the  entertainment  of  the 
company.  The  host  is  the  public,  whose  part  it  is  to  bear 
with  his  waywardness,  to  be  indulgent  towards  his  short- 
comings, to  overlook  his  deficiencies.  The  author  of  the 
following  little  volume  scarcely  need  add,  that  this  claim 
of  the  author-guest  is  strong  in  proportion  as  he  possesses 
the  one  virtue,  the  rare  virtue,  of  brevity. 

March,  1846. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAG  I 

THE  RHINE — BINGEN — WIESBADEN 7 


CHAPTER  II. 
HEIDELBERG— SUNSET — PRUSSIAN  SOLDIERY 11 

CHAPTER  III. 
THE  NECKAR — STUTTGARDT — ULM — NAPOLEON 14 

CHAPTER  IV. 

LAKE  OF  CONSTANCE — SWITZERLAND— LAKE  OF  THUN — THE  YUNGFRAU — 
LAUTERBRUNNEN — THE  WENGERN  ALP 19 

CHAPTER  V. 

MOUNTAINEERS — ISOLATION — PRACTICAL  ART — MAN'S  AGENTS — PRINCES 
AND  PRIESTS — SACERDOTAL  DESPOTISM — CATHOLICISM — JESUITISM — 
CONCLUSIONS 23 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Swiss  REPUBLIC — BADEN-BADEN — THE  NUN — PEACE-CONGRESS  IN  FRANK- 
FORT   31 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PAGE 

STAGE-COACH  AND  CAR — CONSERVATISM — GERMAN  BURGHER  AND  POSTILION 
— PRIMARY  EDUCATION  IN  GERMANY          ...  .     37 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
MARBURGH — MONUMENT — RAILROAD  TO  CASSEL — CASSEL  TO  DRESDEN      .     42 

CHAPTER  IX. 
A  DAY  IN  DRESDEN 47 

CHAPTER  X. 

WEIMAR — CEMETERY — SCHILLER'S  STUDY — GALL  AND  GOETHE — CRANIUM 
OF  SCHILLER — WEIMAR'S  HIGH  INHABITANTS 55 

CHAPTER  XI. 
EISENACH — THE  WARTBURG — LUTHER 64 

CHAPTER  XII. 

WHO   FOLLOWED   LlITHER RACES — COLOR CHRISTIANITY PROTESTANTS 

AND  CATHOLICS — ENGLISH   AND   SPANISH  AMERICA — CONVERSIONS   TO 
ROMANISM — RELIGION         .        .         .        .        .        .        .         .        .72 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

SUPPER-TABLE  AT  THE  "  HALF- MOON"  IN  EISENACH — ANNADALE — GRIMM'S 
TALES — MIGRATION  WESTWARD  .         .         .         .        .        .         .88 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

GlESSEN — LlEBIG — MARIEXBERti — PfilESNITZ — THE    RHINE  .      95 


CONTENTS.  v 

CHAPTER  XV. 

PAGE 

COLOGNE — DUSSELDORF — ARTISTS — LEUTZE'S  WASHINGTON — FREILIGRATH      99 

CHAPTER,  XVI. 
CLEANLINESS — BELGIAN  PROSPERITY — STATISTICS 104 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

FRANCE — DEMOCRACY — BONAPARTE — Louis  PHILLIPE — Louis  BONAPARTE  .  110 

• 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
A  DAY  IN  PARIS 119 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
A  WALK  IN  THE  LOUVRE 151 

CHAPTER  XX. 

FRAGMENTS 164 


SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   RHINE BINGEN WIESBADEN. 

To  be  taken  up  by  a  steamboat  on  the  Rhine  is  always  a  lively 
incident.  Out  from  her  level  path  to  the  pier  the  strenuous  gay 
boat  glides  with  a  grace  that  captivates  the  traveller,  like  the 
smiling  welcome  of  a  beautiful  hostess.  On  the  morning  of 
Monday  the  22d  of  July,  1850,  there  was  a  fog  on  the  river,  so 
that  the  Goethe,  due  at  Boppart  at  half-past  one,  did  not  arrive 
from  Coblenz  till  past  two.  Seated  on  the  quay  with  cheerful 
company,  we  escaped  the  vacuum  which,  to  the  idle  as  well  as 
to  the  busy,  ever  comes  with  waiting. 

To  be  ushered  of  a  sudden,  hungry,  upon  the  scene  of  a  repast 
that  has  been,  with  the  fragments  of  good  cheer  strewn  around,  is 
not  a  happy  beginning.  When  we  got  on  board  dinner  was  over. 
Under  the  awning,  at  the  long,  narrow  tables,  with  tall,  empty 
Rhenish  bottles  in  the  midst,  a  medley  of  nations  were  chatting 
German,  French,  English,  with  the  volubility  and  complacency 
of  satisfied  appetites. 

Man  is  the  creature  of  food.  To  be  well  fed  is  the  first  con- 
dition  of  thriving  manhood.  Let  the  others  take  rank  as  they  may, 
this  is  the  basis.  The  British  tar  was  right,  who,  on  seeing  the 

beef  destined  for  an  American  man-of-war,  exclaimed,  "  D 

'em,  no  wonder  they  fight  so."  Let  Europe  look  to  it.  The 
twenty-five  millions  of  the  United  States  take  in  daily  as  much 


8  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

nutriment  as  almost  double  the  number  of  any  other  Christian 
feeders.  Not  that  the  Americans  are  overfed  :  the  Europeans 
are  fearfully  underfed.  John  Bull  is  getting  puzzled  and  alarmed 
at  the  pace  at  which  Jonathan  is  "  going  ahead."  Let  him  be- 
think him,  that  while  to  his  millions  roast  beef  is  a  tradition  or  a 
festival,  to  ours  it  or  its  equivalent  is  a  daily  smoking  reality. 
Democracy  and  t(  a  good  bellyful"  go  together.  The  which 
takes  precedence  as  cause,  we  will  not  now  stop  to  determine. 
Our  well-being  depends  primarily  upon  what  we  eat.  Nature 
ordains  that  man  should  feed  well,  plenteously,  variously.  To 
mortify  the  flesh,  except  to  counterbalance  a  surfeit,  is  a  sacrilege 
and  an  impertinence. 

Reflections  like  these  come  up,  without  forcing,  from  an  empty 
stomach  into  the  brain  of  a  man  waiting  for  his  dinner. 

I  had  not  talked  three  minutes  with  my  neighbor  at  the  table 
before  he  brought  in  California.  Neither  the  resumption  of  pay- 
ment by  defaulting  States,  nor  the  feats  of  the  Mexican  war,  have 
raised  us  in  European  esteem  so  much  as  the  possession  of  Cali- 
fornia. Virtue  with  the  Romans  meant  courage,  it  now  means 
cash.  If  men  were  not  hypocrites  they  would  call  the  Rothschilds 
the  most  virtuous  family  in  Europe.  California  is  in  everybody's 
thought  and  mouth.  Gold  !  gold  !  Protean  potentate,  flexible 
omnipotence,  gentle  conqueror — what  can  it,  what  can  it  not  ?  By 
giving  it,  we  get  peace  within  and  good-will  without ;  by  lending 
it,  gratitude  and  six  per  cent. ;  by  promising  it,  the  service  of  the 
strong  ;  by  spending  it,  profit  or  pleasure  ;  by  hoarding  it,  we 
have  the  more  of  it,  and  by  having  it  we  are  masters  of  most  that 
the  world  prizes.  He  who  speaks  contemptuously  of  gold  is  a 
dissembler  or  a  simpleton. 

The  Rhine,  fatted  by  the  maternal  glaciers  of  Switzerland, 

rushes  down  resistless,  like  a  headlong  herd  of  buffaloes  on  a 
prairie.  But  we  drive  steadily  up,  and  heed  not  his  torrent, 
taming  his  counter-flood  to  our  will  with  the  wizard  hand  of 


BINGEN.  9 

Genius.  How  divine,  to  wrest  from  the  great  heart  of  Nature  o 
pregnant  secret,  and  endow  the  world  with  a  new  force,  immeas- 
urable, infinite.  The  boats  on  the  Rhine  have  good  fitting  names, 
but  not  one  of  them  the  best  and  fittest,  the  name  of  Fulton. — I 
look  up,  and  above  the  modern  landscape,  still  cresting  his  vine- 
mantled  hill,  a  stern  old  ruin  paints  his  jagged  outline  on  the 
sunny  sky,  and  brags  of  the  past,  like  some  weather-beaten  grand, 
papa.  At  the  water's  edge  the  blackened  broken  wall  fences  in 
part  the  compact  little  town,  from  whose  midst  rises  the  bulky 
church,  triste,  heavy,  unsightly  from  without ;  triste,  chill, 
prosaic  within ;  where  mechanical  priests  still  drive  their  huck- 
stering trade,  selling  what  they  have  not  earned,  and  cannot 
possess  without  earning,  fuddling  the  green  imaginations  with 
doctrinal  strong-waters,  compressing  the  expansive  intellect, 
paralyzing  the  vivid  soul,  frightening  to  subject,  enlarging  them- 
selves to  belittle  the  multitude,  whom  they  darken  where  they 
should  enlighten ;  thus  blaspheming  while  they  affect  to  pray. 
The  churches  that  arose  under  the  inspiration  of  Beauty,  the 
which  it  is  a  joy  and  an  exaltation  to  behold,  are  as  rare  as  are 
the  spiritually-entitled  priests,  whom  it  is  a  privilege  to  hear. 

As  you  stand  on  the  heights  in  its  rear,  Bingen  smiles  up 

to  you,  enwreathed  with  vineyards, — Bacchanal  Bingen.  The 
precious,  petted  vines, — just  now  in  their  pride  of  leaf  and  fresh 
luxuriance  of  new  juicy  shoots, — press  up  to  the  walls,  and  over 
them  into  the  town  itself.  Opposite,  Rudesheim  piles  its  fruitful 
terraces,  and  a  little  further  is  Geisenheim,  and  beyond  Johanis- 
berg, — inspiring,  names,  that  stand  high  and  highest  on  the  scroll 
that  the  traveller  pores  over  with  daily  renewed  zest.  All  around 
is  one  green  wine- promising  abundance. 

The  happiest  eyes  that  from  the  deck  of  the  boat  gazed  upon  the 
warm,  expanded  landscape  between  Bingen  and  Biberich,  were 
those  of  a  German,  naturalized  in  the  United  States,  and  revisit- 
ing, after  ten  years'  absence,  his  native  Germany.  The  man 

1* 


10  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

seemed  to  feel  for  the  first,  time,  in  all  its  fulness,  the  sweet 
strength  of  his  new  ties.  The  joy  of  rebeholding  the  land  of  his 
birth  disclosed  to  him  the  intensity  of  his  love  for  the  -land  of  his 
adoption.  Of  what  "  we"  had  and  did  in  America  he  spoke  with 
the  glow  of  one  who  had  been  raised  to  a  new  dignity.  As 
watching  the  mellow  shifting  landscape,  we  talked  of  America, 
his  countenance  beamed  with  a  compound  delight.  Through  the 
present  enjoyment  shone  the  deeper  satisfaction  of  thoughts  that 
were  busied  with  his  new  home.  There,  in  democratic  America, 
he  had  been  reborn  and  rebaptized.  He  was  conscious  that  he 
had  become  a  larger,  abler  man  than  he  could  have  been  in  Ger- 
many. He  could  not  conceal  his  happiness,  that  he  had  ex- 
changed a  home  that  was  so  dear  to  him  for  one  that  was  still 
dearer. 

Wiesbaden  owes  its  summer  life  to  two  poisons, — its  boiling 

mineral  spring,  and  its  ravenous  roulette-tables.  Early  in  the 
morning,  round  the  "  Koch-Brunnen"  (boiling  spring)  a  motley 
crowd  of  pallid  dupes  cool  their  smoking  glasses  to  below  the 
scalding  point,  credulously  abiding  the  sulphurous  self-infliction 
of  repeated  seething  draughts.  In  the  evening,  a  denser  throng 
encircle  in  eager  morbid  silence  the  gaming-tables,  where  rich 
and  poor,  men  and  women,  sick  and  well,  fascinated  by  the  gloat- 
ing eye  of  Mammon,  throw  their  tens  and  thousands  into  the 
monster's  maw.  On  one  of  the  few  days  that  we  stopped  at 
Wiesbaben,  a  rich  banker  lost  in  a  single  evening  four  thousand 
pounds  sterling.  I  was  told  of  another  player  whose  eyebrows 
turned  white  in  a  few  days  after  continued  heavy  losses. 

These  crowded  summer  resorts  represent  the  pursuit  of  pleasure 
under  difficulties. 


SB 


CHAPTER  II. 

HEIDELBERG SUXSET PRUSSIAN   SOLDI  ER Y. 

COULD  a  man  be  said  to  have  travelled  from  Dan  to  Beersbeba, 
who  had  compassed  the  space  between  the  two  by  steam  ?  Trav- 
elling implies  effort,  a  concurrent  locomotive  activity,  and  a  self, 
guidance  on  the  part  of  the  traveller.  Once  in  a  railroad  car,  he 
is  passive,  subordinated,  without  will  or  authority,  with  but  even 
a  tatter  of  personality  left  to  him,  in  the  shape  of  his  ticket.  He 
doesn't  travel,  he  is  transported,  and  is  hurriedly  thrust  out  on 
the  platform  of  a  station,  just  as  though,  instead  of  being  a  bag  of 
electrified  capillaries,  he  were  but  a  bag  of  oats.  In  this  way  we 
came  in  a  few  hours  from  Wiesbaden  to  Heidelberg. 

The  beautiful  structures  of  man's  making  rise  from  the  earth 
like  a  favored  growth  out  of  it.  They  are  adopted  by  Nature. 
The  sun  rejoices  to  shine  on  them.  The  Castle  of  Heidelberg  we 
reached  in  time  to  behold  it  by  a  sunset  of  American  gorgeous- 
ness.  The  rosy  atmosphere  deepened  the  expression  of  the  beau- 
tiful inward  facade  which  stood  again  before  us,  ever  young  and 
fresh.  Perennial  youth  is  not  a  fable,  or  a  futile  longing:  it  is 
the  gift  of  Genius  to  its  handiwork,  and  is  the  touchstone  of  Art. 
But  a  work  of  genuine  art  is  not  only  young  itself, — it  makes  you 
young.  To  revisit  it,  annihilates  time.  The  intervening  years 
are  bridged  over  by  a  rainbow. 

Through  time-rents  and  vacant  casements  the  rich  horizontal 
beams  fell  with  a  glow  of  celestial  gladness.  From  the  terrace, 


12  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  town  beneath,  with  the  valley  and  plain  that  stretched  far 
away  towards  the  burning  west,  lay  in  a  blissful  tranquillity. 
Alas !  only  to  the  outward  eye,  bribed  by  the  purple  opulence  of 
light.  In  this  seeming  Paradise  the  ubiquitous  Serpent  is  at  work, 
and  here  is  neither  bliss  nor  peace,  but  in  their  stead,  unrest, 
misery.  This  magnificent  leave-taking  between  Sun  and  Earth, 
this  illuminated  farewell,  this  broad  parting  look  of  love,  which 
lights  up  the  countenance  of  the  responsive  Earth  with  an  intense 
flush  of  beauty, — how  many  see  it  or  share  it,  of  the  tens  of  thou- 
sands there  below,  on  whom  it  falls  ?  In  torpid  imbecility,  in 
exasperated  conflict,  they  lie  and  writhe  there,  with  senses  closed 
to  the  eloquent  heavenly  message.  This  beauty,  which  is  for 
them,  they  cannot  claim ;  this  magnificence  of  nature,  they  are 
too  poor  to  accept.  The  few  who,  by  fortune  or  spiritual  effort, 
possess  freedom  enough  to  enjoy,  revel  on  such  spectacles,  and 
in  them  escape  from  the  omnivorous  evil  around,  their  imagina- 
tions purged  by  this  transfiguring  light.  Only  for  a  moment  they 
escape,  for  the  ghastly  realities  can  be  but  momentarily  laid.  Not 
as  the  evanescent  demons  of  a  dream  do  these  come,  but  as  the 
abiding  terrors  that  leap  upon  the  awakening  criminal.  So  begirt 
are  we  by  implacable  hostilities ;  self-doomed  to  have  every  joy 
shadowed  by  a  sorrow,  every  love  dogged  by  a  hate,  every  pos- 
session haunted  by  a  fear. 

Descending  into  the  town,  we  came  upon  squads  of  Prussian 
soldiery.  Whenever  I  meet  these  mechanized  men,  these  soul- 
informed  machines,  these  man-shaped  irresponsibilities,  I  feel 
saddened,  humiliated,  insulted.  Plainer  than  words  they  say  to 
me, — speak  not,  think  not,  act  not.  In  their  presence  I  am  ut- 
terly quenched.  I  feel  myself  supplanted,  and  in  my  place  a 
musket.  In  their  speechless  tramp  there  is  somethimg  terrific. 
This  steeled  silence  controls  my  speech :  this  noiseless  move- 
ment paralyzes  my  will. 

The  European  armies  hang  on  the  nations,  a  monstrous  idle- 


STANDING  ARMIES.  13 

ness,  a  universal  polluting  scab.  In  them  are  condensed  into  one 
vast  blight  the  seven  plagues  of  Egypt.  Like  the  "  frogs,"  they 
"  come  upon  the  people,  into  their  houses,  their  bed-chambers, 
their  ovens,  their  kneading-troughs."  How  this  picture  fits  them 
in  all  its  traits.  Look  at  those  knots  of  lounging  dirty  soldiers : 
they  swarm  and  buzz  over  the  whole  land,  like  the  "  lice  and 
flies,"  only  more  befouling  than  these.  Are  they  not  "  sores  and 
blains"  on  the  people,  a  moral  and  physical  corruption,  and  a 
drain  upon  their  strength?  "The  fire  that  ran  along  on  the 
ground" — what  could  realize  it  more  vividly  than  the  march  of 
armies,  smiting  like  the  "  hail"  as  they  pass,  both  man  and  beast, 
and  herb  and  tree,  and  eating  like  the  "  locusts"  the  fruits  of  the 
earth  and  every  green  thing.  In  the  crowning  "  Plague  of  Dark- 
ness," the  likeness  is  the  most  palpable.  Standing  armies  are  the 
very  fomenters  of  darkness.  Their  office  is  to  propagate  night 
and  make  men  sleep  on.  They  are  coarse,  brutalizing  Force,  in 
contrast  and  conflict  with  the  subtle,  humanizing,  liberating  power 
of  the  intellect  and  heart  of  man.  They  are  a  million-mouthed 
extinguisher  plied  ceaselessly  by  the  hand  of  Despotism,  to  crush 
out  the  light  so  fast  as  it  jets  up.  They  exist  to  enforce  man's 
law  against  God's  law,  to  be  the  jailers  of  thought,  the  execu- 
tioners of  freedom. 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE   NECKAR STUTTGARDT ULM NAPOLEON. 

GOING  up  the  valley  of  the  Neckar,  one  runs  over  with  im- 
practicable desires,  and  their  tantalizing  importunity  is  an  index 
of  the  overflowing  abundance  of  its  beauties.  How  many  sites 
that  one  longs  to  halt  at  for  a  day  ;  how  many  hills  that  one 
would  climb,  to  compass  a  wider  enjoyment.  But  we  must  be 
at  Heilbron  in  time  to  dine,  before  taking  the  railroad  to  Stiitt- 
gardt.  To  no  one  is  dinner  a  more  important  item  in  the  day's 
account  than  to  your  traveller. 

Stiittgardt  is  a  "  Residenz."  A  "  Residenz"  is  a  German 
town,  lifted  into  consequence  from  its  being  chosen  by  the  sov- 
ereign of  a  petty  dominion  for  the  residence  of  his  petty  self  and 
his  petty  court.  In  the  body-politic  of  Germany,  these  reiterated 
capitals  assume  to  be  ganglia,  or  nervous  centres,  whence  politi- 
cal vitality  (so  much  as  there  may  be)  is  diffused  through  the  lit- 
tle circle  upon  each  dependant.  They  are  absorbents  rather, 
and  of  a  wen-like  turgescence,  seeing  that  they  suck  in,  as  well 
of  spiritual  force  as  of  material  substance,  more  than  they  impart. 
Here,  in  a  small  theatre,  is  performed,  without  interlude,  the  serio- 
comedy  of  Kingship,  wherein  Usurpation  brazens  it  out  by  a  pre- 
scription of  impudence,  and  Servility  is  so  low  that  it  knows  not 
its  own  lowness  ;  where  the  emptiest  actors  play  often  the  highest 
parts  ;  and  where  the  audience  is  terribly  out  at  elbows,  being 
forced  to  forego,  most  of  them,  even  some  of  the  necessaries  of  a 


NAPOLEON.  15 

meagre  household,  to  furnish  the  gilded  trappings  of  the  perform- 
ers. To  an  American,  there  is  no  more  astonishing  feature  in 
European  existence,  than  the  patience  of  the  people.  Their  for- 
bearance is  to  me  a  daily  marvel. 

Railroads  lay  open  the  landscapes  of  a  country ;  they  take 

to  the  valleys.  At  Geislingen,  between  Stiittgardt  and  Ulm,  there 
is  one  of  rare  beauty,  which,  before  you  issue  out  of  its  upper  end, 
narrows  to  a  gorge,  where  the  ascent  achieved  being  of  several 
hundred  feet,  the  delight  of  the  traveller  is  redoubled  by  admira- 
tion of  man's  mechanical  art.  With  noiseless  ease  the  heavy 
train  rolls  up  the  valley.  True  power  is  so  unostentatious.  I 
know  not  a  clearer  image,  at  once  of  might  and  beneficence  than 
a  silent  shower,  that  slakes  the  thirst  of  half  a  continent.  Wit- 
nessing it,  one  wonders  at  the  large  facility  of  Nature.  A  great 
idea  or  discovery,  offspring  of  the  prolific  brain  of  man,  works  and 
fertilizes  with  a  like  breadth  and  bounty. 

Ulm  is  historical.  It  is  one  of  the  many  Continental  towns 

branded  with  notoriety  by  the  fatal  hand  of  Napoleon.  It  was 
here,  in  1805,  while  Europe  awaited  with  breathless  intentness  his 
descent  upon  England,  that  Napoleon,  sped  by  his  demoniacal  in- 
stincts, having  rapidly  traversed  France  from  Boulogne  to  Stras- 
burg,  suddenly  faced  the  astounded  Austrians,  cut  in  two  their 
force,  and  by  the  capture  of  sixty  thousand  men  at  Ulm,  opened 
the  campaign,  which  in  a  few  weeks  was  to  end  with  the  victory 
of  Austerlitz. 

What  grasping  thoughts  now  swelled  that  vivid  brain,  making 
even  the  new  diadem  too  small  for  it.  As  on  the  daily  outspread 
chart  the  sure  eye  of  the  General  tracked  the  marches  of  the  ene- 
my, the  Imperial  glance  ranged  far  beyond  the  lines  of  a  cam- 
paign, and  kindling  with  dark  power,  devoured  land  after  land  on 
the  broad  map  of  Europe.  Between  him  and  his  hope,  no  majes- 
tic figure  of  Justice,  no  tearful  countenance  of  Humanity  uprose 
to  rebuke  his  desires.  The  higher  his  eminence,  the  less  he  felt 


16  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  wants  of  his  fellows.  As  he  ascended,  he  put  away  from  him 
more  and  more  the  nobler  attributes  of  man's  nature  ;  until,  at 
the  culmination  of  his  path,  he  had  become  an  icy  ambition-mas- 
tered inhumanity,  illuminated  by  intellect. 

He  was  now  rapidly  mounting.  From  the  height  gained  by  the 
victory  at  Ulm,  his  horizon  widened  of  a  sudden.  Into  the  future 
he  glared  with  exultation.  The  foes  before  him  he  felt  were  his 
^prey.  He  strode  on  to  clutch  them.  Munich  he  entered  as  a 
deliverer.  Elated  with  conquest,  exalted  by  Bavarian  homage, 
flushed  with  ambitious  visions,  the  new  Emperor  seized  in  his 
audacious  thought  a  boundless  sovereignty. — A  courier  arrives 
from  the  west.  What  brings  he  ?  A  tremor  seizes  Napoleon's 
frame.  His  face  is  livid.  His  lurid  eye  rolls,  as  though  tortured 
by  the  brain  behind  it.  Fled  are  those  gigantic  visions.  Far 
away  from  the  Austrian  are  his  thoughts.  He  writhes  with  anger 
and  hate.  In  his  hand  is  the  report  of  the  battle  of  Trafalgar. 

Napoleon  has  himself  said,  that  but  for  the  obstinate  resistance 
of  Sir  Sidney  Smith  at  Acre,  the  course  of  history  had  been 
changed.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  career  he  was 
baffled  by  the  sturdy  Islanders.  This  was  part  of  his  "Destiny." 
At  Acre  ;  at  the  Nile ;  at  Trafalgar ;  at  Copenhagen,  where 
their  seizure  of  the  Danish  fleet,  disconcerted  again  his  plans,  and 
poured  gall  into  the  brimming  cup  of  his  German  triumphs  ;  in 
Spain,  where  he  boasted  that  he  would  drive  that  Sepoy  (Wei- 
lington)  into  the  Atlantic.  At  the  high  tides  of  his  affairs  came 
ever  this  adverse  potency  to  make  an  ebb  in  his  fortunes.  When 
his  fortunes  had  waned,  it  was  England  that  gave,  at  Waterloo, 
the  finishing  blow,  and  then  bound  the  Imperial  Upstart  to  a  far 
rock  in  the  tropical  ocean,  there  to  be  slowly  devoured  by  the 
vulture  of  his  own  sensations. 

This  strength  to  master  the  giant,  England  drew  from  her  free- 
dom. The  Continental  States  were  all  Despotisms.  One  after 
the  other  they  fell  before  democratized  France.  Napoleon,  a 


ENGLAND,  RUSSIA.  17 

child  of  the  Revolution,  wielded  its  fiery  vigor  to  crush  the  old 
tyrannies.  His  own  new  one  he  set  up  in  their  stead.  He  cheated 
France  of  her  revolutionary  earnings.  In  exchange  for  the  gold 
of  political  rights,  he  gave  her  the  gilt  copper  of  military  glory. 
Her  people  were  again  effaced  before  his  will.  She  became  a 
new  despotism  amid  old  despotisms.  She  was  shorn  of  half  her 
new  strength.  England  was  the  only  great  nation  where  the 
People  were  for  something  in  the  State.  Like  Austria  and  Russia, 
she  had  made  war  against  Napoleon  for  self-preservation ;  but 
unlike  them  she  never  succumbed  to  the  despot.  But  for  her, 
they  would  have  been  his  subordinate  fellow-despots.  In  her  the 
feeling  of  national  independence  was  kept  erect  by  the  breath  of 
freedom.  Napoleon,  who  would  that  no  one  had  a  will  but  him- 
self, who  hated  any  and  every  man's  liberty,  who  strove  to  centre 
in  himself  all  political  vitality,  who  sucked  the  French  nation 
dry  of  its  liberal  juices,  felt  that  England,  the  only  home  for 
freedom  in  Europe,  was  his  most  dread  foe.  He  struck  at  her 
with  his  whole  might ;  but  her  might,  nurtured  by  liberty,  was 
stronger  than  his,  poisoned  by  slavery.  Thus,  his  very  power 
became  his  weakness.  In  his  prosperity,  he  had  absorbed  into 
himself  the  life-blood  of  France :  in  his  adversity,  he  found  him- 
self the  head  of  a  corpse. 

The  Emperor  of  Russia  takes  the  place  of  Bonaparte  in  hatred 
of  England.  Russia  would  rule  Europe  through  despotism.  Na- 
tional rivalries  are  not  barriers  enough  to  check  her.  Austria  as 
a  State,  has  the  most  to  dread  from  Russia ;  and  yet  they  are, 
through  the  paramount  necessities  of  despotism,  fast  allies. 

In  the  struggle  between  regal  governments,  backed  by  auto- 
cratic Russia,  and  the  governed,  or  more  properly  the  mis- 
governed, led  by  France,  aristocratic  England  must  back  the 
Peoples.  And  this,  not  alone  ambitiously  to  thwart  Russian 
ambition,  but  from  the  deep  instincts  of  her  national  being,  whose 
health  and  strength  spring  from  the  democratic  element  in  her 


18  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

Constitution.  This  makes  her  the  political  enemy  of  Russia  and 
Austria,  and  at  the  same  time  gives  her  the  force  to  withstand 
them.  The  intensity  of  life  and  the  resources  of  a  nation,  are  in 
proportion  to  the  political  participation  of  the  people.*  Therefore 
it  is,  that  in  Europe,  England  ranks  first  in  wealth  and  power. 
Therefore,  the  United  States, — who  left  behind  them  in  their  nest 
the  impure  political  principles,  the  monarchical  and  the  aristo- 
cratic, and  carried  with  them  only  the  pure  principle,  the  demo- 
cratic— have  grown  with  such  astounding  rapidity,  that  already, 
within  three  generations,  in  intrinsic  resources  they  take  the  lead 
of  England,  their  European  mother,  and  who  alone  could  have 
been  their  mother.  In  this  conflict  between  Peoples  and  Princes, 
between  Right  and  Wrong,  between  Light  and  Darkness,  shall  it 
become  necessary  for  Democratic  America  to  intervene,  otherwise 
than  with  the  daily  influence  of  her  principles  and  her  example, 
let  the  strongest  beware. 

By  the  having  achieved  a  larger  liberty  than  has  yet  been  en- 
joyed, we  march  in  the  van  of  all  the  nations  of  the  Earth.  With 
us,  humanity  unfolds  itself  in  broader,  deeper  strata.  Liberty 
cannot  but  purify,  enlarge,  invigorate.  It  harbors  an  inevitable, 
an  involuntary  virtue.  Even  martial  conquests  it  transmutes  into 
beneficences.  Thus,  where  we  conquer,  we  emancipate.  Our 
taking  possession  is  not  an  enthralment,  but  a  deliverance.  We 
cannot  subjugate,  we  must  elevate. 

*  So  morbid  is  their  condition,  that  in  European  States  there  are  two  di- 
vided constituents, — the  governing  and  the  governed,  the  privileged  and  the 
despoiled.  Only  to  the  latter,  that  is,  the  laborers,  the  vile  multitude,  as  M. 
Thiers  calls  them,  is  now  applied  the  generic  term,  the  People.  With  us 
there  is  but  one  constituent :  we  are  all  People. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

LAKE   OF   CONSTANCE — SWITZERLAND — LAKE   OF  THUN — THE   YUNGFBAU— 
LAUTERBRUNNEN THE   WENGERN   ALP. 

FROM  Ulm  the  railroad  carries  you  in  a  few  hours  to  Fried- 
richshafen,  on  the  Lake  of  Constance.  This  is  one  of  the  best 
routes  for  entering  Switzerland.  You  come  upon  it  suddenly. 
The  transition  from  plain  to  mountain  is  across  the  Lake,  whose 
level  expanse  magnifies  the  contrast.  You  get  out  of  the  cars 
and  find  yourself  in  the  sublime  presence.  Just  over  the  clear 
water,  quite  near,  is  the  strange  land,  that  leaves  the  earth  and 
goes  up  into  the  air,  a  land  built  into  the  heavens.  It  looked  like 
a  discovery. 

When  the  sun  shines,  travelling  in  Switzerland  is  a  perpetual 
festival.  Mother  Earth  holds  here  a  jubilee.  She  welcomes  her 
children  with  the  laughter  of  water-falls,  the  thunder  of  avalan- 
ches, the  smiles  of  green  valleys,  the  salutations  of  towering  gran- 
ite, the  gaze  of  snow-glistened  peaks.  You  share  the  sublime  joy 
that  beams  from  her  countenance.  Your  soul  and  senses  expand 
to  be  in  accord  with  her  grandeurs.  You  are  magnified  by  the 
magnificence  around  you.  Nature  here  pours  out  her  generic 
power  in  floods.  She  is  in  a  mood  of  Titanic  revelry.  She  leaps 
and  shouts.  The  Earth  is  heaved  up  and  down  in  exuberance  of 
beauty,  so  inundated  is  matter  by  creative  spirit. 

On  the  18th  of  August,  1850,  the  clouds,  that  for  days  had 

darkened  the  Lake  of  Thun,  and  hidden  all  save  the  bases  of  the 
nearest  mountains,  lifted  their  compact  curtain  of  sombre  vapor, 


20  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE 

let  in  light  upon  the  Lake,  turned  up  their  broken  masses  to  be 
dried  and  whitened  by  the  sun,  and  re-opened  to  the  grateful  eye 
the  far-shining  snow-peaks  of  the  Yungfrau.  A  good  day,  like 
a  good  deed,  makes  you  forget  a  score  of  bad  ones. 

At  two  the  little  steamboat,  with  its  freight  of  cheerful  tourists, 
issued  from  the  port  of  Thun  for  its  afternoon  voyage  to  the  east- 
ern end  of  the  Lake.  The  deep  water,  like  a  deep  heart,  took  in 
and  gave  back  from  its  tranquil  surface  the  grandeurs  and  beau- 
ties about  it.  The  mountains  and  the  vapory  mimicries  of  them 
built  in  the  air,  painted  themselves  with  the  warm  light  into  the 
depths  of  the  Lake,  breaking  and  beautifying  with  their  images 
its  liquid  level.  Before  us,  to  the  right,  the  far  Blumlis  peaks 
of  eternal  snow  shone  whitely  among  the  clouds  that  they  had 
gathered  about  them  as  a  foil  to  their  own  whiteness.  Looking 
back  when  half-way  up  the  Lake,  the  Niessen,  that  rises  from  the 
water's  edge  a  regular  pyramid  a  mile  high  with  a  base  equal  to 
its  height,  presented  a  magnificent  spectacle.  To  one  side  and 
round  the  head  of  the  mountain,  an  isolated,  dark  mass  of  cloud 
clung  with  a  mysterious,  threatening  look,  as  though,  blackened 
by  anger,  it  would  wrestle  with  it  as  with  a  foe.  The  sunbeams 
behind,  that  seemed  to  issue  up  from  the  Earth,  illuminating  one 
edge  of  the  black  cloud,  added  to  the  splendor  of  the  effect.  A 
little  later  the  cloud  had  risen,  and  shrouding  just  the  peak  of  the 
mountain,  gave  it  the  aspect  of  a  volcano  in  travail. 

The  Lake  being  ten  miles  long,  we  landed  in  an  hour,  and 
soon  had  our  faces  turned  southward  towards  the  Valley  of  Lau- 
terbrunnen.  From  the  hot  plain  of  Interlachen,  beyond  and  above 
the  high  angle  formed  by  the  interlapping  green  mountains  of  the 
narrow  valley,  the  Yungfrau  shone  a  dazzling  front  of  white, 
clear  and  palpable,  yet  dreamy  and  unreal,  from  its  unearthlike 
beauty.  Of  the  snowy  surface,  the  eye,  from  this  point,  takes  in 
probably  a  mile  square,  a  wall  of  solid  white  two  miles  up  in  the 
air,  bounded  below  l>y  the  outline  of  mountains,  in  the  inverted 


THE  YUNGFRAU.  21 

angle  of  which  it  seems  to  rest.  It  was  like  an  abstraction,  a 
sublimated  essence  of  the  Earth  ;  so  calm,  so  pure,  out  of  com- 
mon reach,  up-piercing,  predominating.  Like  a  high  abstraction 
too,  infolding  the  condensed  substance  of  truth — which  it  cher- 
ishes and  widely  imparts,  to  the  enrichment  of  many  and  distant 
minds — those  pre-eminent  white  peaks  are  inexhaustible  fertiliz- 
ers, sending  down  from  their  heavenly  elevation  food  for  great 
rivers.  In  Nature  there  is  no  waste,  nothing  useless  or  idle. 
Everything  works.  Everything  has  its  life,  its  purpose,  its  de- 
pendence interlocked  with  its  power.  The  distant  flats  of  Hol- 
land feel  the  power  of  this  cold  pinnacle  of  the  Yungfrau,  which 
helps  to  keep  full  the  freighted  channel  of  the  Rhine  ;  while  on 
the  rivers  that  she  feeds  she  is  herself  dependent,  the  impalpable 
exhalations  from  them,  condensed  in  the  upper  air,  furnishing  the 
snow,  which  in  her  sublime  strength  she  sends  back  in  avalan- 
ches, that  give  to  the  torrents,  born  in  her  bosom,  the  volume  and 
speed  to  hurry  to  the  plain.  On  her  summit  the  Creative  Spirit 
is  enthroned  in  unspeakable  grandeur,  and  works  thence  with  a 
ceaseless  bounty. 

We  were  soon  inclosed  in  the  wonderful  valley,  whose  sides 
are  steep  fir-clad  mountains,  or  perpendicular  planes  of  bare  rock 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  high.  Down  its  stony  path,  the  Lutchine, 
whose  source  is  in  the  near  glaciers,  comes  shouting  fiercely, 
as  it  were  the  bearer  of  an  angry  message  from  the  mountains. 

At  the  village  of  Lauterbrunnen,  our  resting-place  for  the 
night,  is  the  brook  which  falls  into  the  valley  over  a  precipice 
nine  hundred  feet  high,  and  thence,  from  being  shivered  into 
spray  by  the  wind  and  the  height  of  its  fall,  gets  the  name  of 
Dustbrook  (Staubach).  Itself  a  wonder,  it  is  a  type  of  this  val- 
ley of  wonders.  From  the  twilight  below,  we  beheld,  over  the 
green  mountains,  the  rosy  sunset  that  bloomed  for  several  min- 
utes on  one  of  the  snowy  peaks.  It  was  like  a  glimpse  into  a 
brighter  world. 


22  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

The  next  morning  at  half-past  five,  my  young  companion  and 
myself,  well  mounted,  were  on  our  way  up  the  Wengern  Alp. 
The  cool  clear  air  gave  us  a  good  appetite  for  a  bad  breakfast  at 
the  inn  near  the  top,  which  we  reached  at  eight. 

Now  we  are  face  to  face  with  the  white  giantess,  between  us  a 
deep,  black  chasm.  We  stand  a  mile  above  the  sea  level,  and 
even  with  us  is  the  snow-line  of  the  Yungfrau.  The  summit  is 
more  than  two  miles  above  the  sea  ;  so  that  we  have,  right  in 
front  and  above  us,  distant  from  one  to  two  thousand  yards,  and 
seeming  but  a  few  hundred,  a  mass  of  vertical  snow  more  than  a 
mile  high,  and  several  in  breadth.  The  eye  strives  to  grow  fa- 
miliar with  these  sublimities.  Far  below  are  all  sounds  of  the 
common  Earth.  About  us  is  a  sublime  silence,  so  wide  and  deep, 
that  nothing  small  can  break  it ;  common  noises  only  scratch  its 
surface  ;  it  is  broken  by  the  avalanche.  This  solid,  up-stretch- 
ing, white  immensity  !  This  mountain-measured  distance  !  This 
unearthly  silence  !  This  thunder- voice  of  the  avalanche  !  No- 
thing is  ordinary  and  every-day-like  but  the  sunshine.  We 
heard  and  saw  several  avalanches.  They  look  like  a  fall  of 
water,  and  sound  like  a  roar  of  thunder.  Over  the  chasm  an 
eagle  is  circling. 

Before  noon  we  were  again  on  the  road  to  Griindelwald.  As 
we  advanced  we  had  in  view  successively,  and  at  times  several  or 
all  together,  the  Yungfrau,  the  Monck,  the  Eiger,  the  Welterhorn, 
the  Schreckhorn,  and  the  Finster-Aarhorn  the  least  of  them  more 
than  13,000  feet  above  the  sea-level,  and  the  Aarhorn,  the  highest 
of  the  sublime  group,  over  14,000.  What  company  for  a  morning 
ride  !  We  passed  the  relics  of  a  forest  blasted  by  avalanches, 
and  far  down  the  descent  a  patch  of  snow.  At  Griindelwald  we 
visited  one  of  the  glaciers — a  huge,  creeping,  Saurian  monster, 
with  its  tail  high  up  among  the  eternal  snows,  its  body  prostrate 
in  a  rocky  gorge,  and  its  head  flattened  upon  the  green  valley, 
into  which  it  was  spouting  turbid  water. 


CHAPTER  V. 

MOUNTAINEERS ISOLATION— PRACTICAL  ART MAN'S  AGENTS PRINCES  AND  PRIESTS 

SACERDOTAL    DESPOTISM CATHOLICISM JESUITISM CONCLUSIONS. 

MOUNTAINEERS  cannot  but  be  hardy.  They  have  a  constant 
fight  with  Nature  to  win  a  livelihood.  The  stern,  fixed  features 
of  their  abode  limit  their  being,  and  give  to  it  a  one-sided  inten- 
sity. From  these  causes  they  are  courageous,  independent,  with 
a  strong,  fond  clinging  to  their  home.  Witness  the  Swiss,  the 
Caucasians,  the  Highlanders  of  Scotland.  At  the  same  time, 
from  being  isolated  and  confined,  they  are  inflexible  and  station- 
ary. Dogged,  persevering,  tough,  they  are  not  expansive,  not 
progressive. 

Isolation  withers  whether  man  or  community.  The  first  need 
for  human  growth  is  contact.  The  closer,  wider,  more  varied  the 
contact,  the  stronger,  fuller,  straighter  will  be  the  growth.  Heeren 
says  justly,  that  a  great  source  of  Phenician,  Grecian,  Roman 
development  was  the  Mediterranean.  Besides  its  practical  facili- 
ties, a  sea  acts  healthfully  on  the  mind  by  motion  and  fluidity, 
inviting  its  capabilities,  giving  it  a  broad  impulse.  Here  is  an 
immensity,  and  yet  to  be  compassed, — a  boundlessness,  and  yet 
to  be  explored.  The  Swiss  want  this  ever-urgent  opportunity  of 
expansion.  Their  geographical  completes  their  political  isolation, 
their  country  being  withal  circumscribed.  The  very  sublimities 
of  their  land  are  practically  a  hindrance,  rather  than  a  further- 
ance. These  awful  heights  do  not  lift  up,  they  press  down  the 


24  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

people.  These  grand  glaciers  feed  the  Rhine  and  the  Rhone  and 
the  Tessino,  for  the  use  of  others.  The  centres  of  Swiss  culture 
are  away  from  proximity  with  avalanches  and  precipices,  in  the 
midst  of  warm  arable  fields,  at  Zurich  and  Geneva,  near  the 
frontiers  of  Germany  and  France. 

A  rugged,  ungenerous  soil,  inland,  cannot  rear  a  strong  people. 
Scotland  and  New  England  could  not  have  nurtured  so  thorough 
a  breed,  but  for  having  at  their  door  the  land-embracing  ocean. 
Through  it,  the  whole  world,  open  to  their  enterprise,  is  made 
tributary  to  their  invention.  For  development,  nations  need  the 
sea.  The  ancients  had  the  Mediterranean.  Since  that  the  earth 
has  grown  larger,  and  nations  with  it.  The  Atlantic  is  now  the 
Mediterranean.  Soon  all  the  oceans  will  form  but  one  Mediter- 
ranean for  all  the  continents — a  universal  path  for  intercommuni- 
cation among  all  the  peoples. 

With  an  ever  deeper  embrace  Art  encircles  her  elder  sister, 

Nature  ;  the  two  co- working  with  man  for  his  deliverance.  The 
highest  service  of  practical  Art  is,  to  bring  men  together.  For 
this,  greater  instruments  are  needed  in  the  modern  enlarged  field, 
than  in  the  ancient  confined  one.  Types,  steam,  electricity,  these 
are  the  mighty  modern  instruments.  They  are  at  once  the  signs 
and  means  of  elevation.  They  are  cause  after  having  been 
effect.*  They  denote  moral  as  well  as  intellectual  activity  ;  for 
in  productive  action  there  is  always  virtue.  The  most  selfish 
workers  carry  forward  undesignedly  the  common  cause. 

*  These  great  tools  are  but  growths,  elongations  of  the  intellect, — helps, 
which  in  its  fulness  it  contrives  for  itself.  All  machines  are  but  man-made 
fingers,  legs,  eyes,  ears.  Thence,  the  mind  that  has  not  swelled  to  the  want 
of  them,  cannot  use  them.  What  are  types  or  the  telescope  in  the  hands 
of  the  savage  '£  And  thence,  the  degree  of  activity  wherewith  those  tools 
are  plied,  marks  the  rank  of  nations  in  the  scale  of  humanity.  Pass  from 
the  heart  of  Russia  to  the  heart  of  England,  from  the  sterile  animalism  of 
Africa  to  the  affluent  humanity  of  America.  In  Africa,  types  and  steam  are 
unknown ;  in  Russia  they  are  still  in  embryo  ;  in  England  and  America,  to 
arrest  them  for  a  day,  were  to  arrest  and  confuse  the  great  currents  of  life. 


THE  MIND  OF  MAN.  26 

Life  is  movement.  On  the  earth  man  is  the  centre  of  life. 
For  invigorating,  multiplying,  beautifying  life,  all  Nature  is  at 
his  service.  At  first  he  uses  partially,  grossly,  passively,  only 
her  palpable  simple  qualities.  Compare  the  tools,  and  the  work 
done  with  them,  of  the  savage,  with  the  tools  and  work  of  the 
civilized. 

The  subtler  his  agents,  the  larger  is  man's  gain  of  power. 
Who  can  compute  what  he  has  gained  by  steam  ?  Enter  a 
crowded  capital  by  night,  to  learn  what  a  centupled  flood  of  light 
comes  from  an  imponderable  substance.  What  are  battering- 
rams  to  gunpowder,  whose  terrible  force  is  in  the  sudden  libera- 
tion of  a  gas.  Subtler  than  either,  electricity, — now  our  post- 
man,— has  a  speed  which  cannot  be  calculated.  Subtlest  of  all, 
master  of  them  all,  clutching  their  combined  force  in  its  grasp, 
out-shining  the  sun,  out-running  the  electric  flash,  in  resources 
infinite,  in  power  immeasurable,  is  the  mind  of  man  !  the  centre, 
summit  and  consummation  of  earthly  being,  the  quintessence  of 
things,  the  jewel  of  the  world,  the  citadel  of  humanity,  the  final 
superlative  in  Nature, — the  boundless  receptacle,  the  exhaustless 
source,  whither  and  whence,  backward  and  forward,  flow  the 
streams  of  the  multiplex  movement  which  we  call  the  world, — 
the  mystic  womb  of  thought,  in  whose  vast  depths  lie  the  Past,  the 
Present,  the  Future, — the  mighty  generator,  who  on  earth  gen- 
erates all  the  deeds  of  men,  and  with  man-like  shapes  peoples  the 
infinite  beyond, — the  dauntless  seeker,  who  on  the  dread  confines 
of  being  confronts  the  Creative  Spirit  of  the  Universe,  and  wres- 
tles with  him  for  his  secrets. 

This  divine  fire,  who  dare  wish  to  quench  or  control  it? 
The  sacrilegious,  who  would  handle  this  sublime  essence  as  they 
do  gas  and  steam,  who  are  they  1  They  are  Princes  and  Priests. 

In  the  beginning,  natural  superiorities  are  readily  acknowl- 
edged. By  their  sympathies  not  less  than  by  their  weaknesses, 
men  yield  to  guidance.  So  long  as  it  is  guidance  and  not  direc- 

2 


26  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

tion,  so  long  as  real  superiority  is  the  condition  of  leadership,  the 
relation  between  guides  and  guided  is  healthy.  But  in  the  im- 
perfect social  organizations,  for  the  elastic  play  of  natural  ten- 
dencies,  is  soon  substituted  the  rigid  pressure  of  artificial  arrange- 
ments. Men  invent  laws,  instead  of  discovering  them.  Then 
humanity  is  turned  awry.  Then  in  place  of  impartiality  and 
freedom  and  natural  growth,  there  is — in  proportion  to  the  rigidity 
of  the  conventional  ordinances— one-sidedness,  compression,  tyran- 
ny. The  human-arbitrary  takes  place  of  the  divine-free.  Wil- 
lingly or  not,  men  have  abdicated  their  native  sovereignty  ;  there 
is  enforced  submission  ;  they  are  governed,  ruled,  commanded. 
Their  strength  has  passed  away  from  them,  to  be  centered  in  a 
caste,  a  class,  a  family.  Above  them,  in  permanent  possession, 
absorbing  their  wills,  controlling  their  thoughts,  ordering  their 
acts,  are  irresponsible  masters,  greedy  monopolists  of  power. 
Scorning  men,  defying  God,  jealous,  self-seeking,  unsympathiz- 
ing,  the  first  objects  of  the  suspicion,  envy,  wrath,  of  these  self- 
constituted,  unhallowed  leaders,  are  the  men  commissioned  by 
Nature  to  be  the  guides  of  humanity.  The  mission  of  these  is  to 
enlighten,  to  exalt ;  the  aim  of  the  former  is  to  domineer  over,  to 
possess  men.  The  inspired  benefactors,  the  parents  of  new 
thoughts,  the  revealers  and  champions  of  great  truths — they  who 
are  endowed  with  genius  to  vivify  and  enlarge  the  minds  of  their 
fellows,  when  they  have  not  ended  a  life  of  persecution  by  the 
cross  or  the  fagot,  have  mostly  lived  unacknowledged  to  die 
un  regretted. 

Two  hundred  years  ago,  a  tribunal  of  Theologians  sitting  in 
Rome,  pronounced  the  assertion,  that  the  earth  moves,  to  be  not 
only  heretical  in  religion,  but  absurd  in  philosophy ;  and  to  the 
assertor  applied  the  rack  to  extort  a  retraction  of  this  truth,  which 
his  genius  had  revealed  in  its  high  communings  with  God.  More 
presumptuous,  more  blasphemous  than  the  angry  denial  of  the 
movement  of  the  earth,  is  the  denial  of  the  movement  of  the  hu- 


SACERDOTAL  DESPOTISM.  27 

man  mind.  The  same  tribunal  still  sits  in  Rome,  and  to  its  offi- 
cials in  all  quarters  of  the  globe  proclaims,  that  in  matters  the 
most  vital, — his  duty  to  God,  his  duty  to  his  fellows, — judgment 
shall  not  unfold  itself  in  the  brain  of  man,  but  be  passively  ac- 
cepted from  this  tribunal,  the  privileged  fabricator  of  religious  and 
moral  laws.  This  inhuman,  this  godless  proclamation,  it  en- 
deavors to  enact  by  means  adapted  to  the  condition  of  each  land ; 
by  the  gaol  and  gibbet  in  priest-rotten  Italy, — by  gilded  so- 
phistries, by  feigned  pliancy,  by  Judas-kisses  in  Protestant 
America. 

Of  all  despotism,  the  sacerdotal  is  the  most  desolating,  both  its 
end  and  means  being  the  direct  subjection  of  the  mind.  Irre- 
sponsible priests  are  worse  enemies  of  mankind  than  princes. 
Hating  each  other  as  rival  usurpers,  with  an  unchristian  hate, 
they  have  from  necessity  mostly  leagued  together  to  bemaster  the 
intellect  and  soul ;  believing,  that  he  who  could  possess  himself 
of  the  minds  of  men,  would  own  the  treasure  of  treasures.  But 
the  selfish  are  ever  short-sighted.  It  is  seldom  given  to  thieves  to 
enjoy  their  thefts.  When  priests  have  robbed  their  brother  of 
that  which  makes  him  poor  indeed,  the  wealth  that  he  has  lost 
enricheth  not  the  robber ;  for,  by  a  deep  law  of  Nature,  which 
decrees  the  inviolability  of  the  human  soul,  the  moment  the  mind 
is  invaded  it  ceases  to  be  a  treasure.  The  contiguous  breath  of 
the  possessor  bedims  the  splendor  of  the  jewel.  Freedom  gives 
the  only  light  by  which  it  sparkles.  In  subjection,  the  mind 
pines  and  perishes.  On  itself  must  it  be  poised,  out  of  itself  draw 
its  life,  within  itself  must  be  its  supreme  tribunal.  Else  it  has  no 
spring  for  elevation,  no  self-renewing  vitality,  no  self-rectifying 
force.  It  languishes,  it  sickens,  it  dwindles.  But  not  alone. 
They  who  on  the  holy  of  holies  lay  impious  hands,  the  Cains  who 
kill  their  brothers'  souls,  they  .dwindle  with  it ;  they  become  little 
with  the  littleness  they  have  caused.  Look  at  Spain,  at  Portugal, 
at  Italy,  the  People  and  their  Priests.  What  an  intellectual  wil- 


28  SCENES   AND' THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

derness!  What  children  are  the  People,  what  wet  and  dry 
nurses  their  pastors  ! 

Rome  being  the  centre  of  Catholicism,  in  the  upper  ranks  of 
the  Hierarchy  there,  an  intellectual  activity  is  maintained  by  the 
conflict  thence  directed  against  Protestantism  in  the  freer  coun- 
tries of  Christendom.  No  correspondent  moral  activity  is  visible. 
On  the  contrary,  being  predominant,  absolute,  irresponsible,  liv- 
ing in  isolated  grandeur  high  above  the  people,  the  upper  clergy 
in  Rome  is  further  than  almost  any  class  of  men  in  the  world  out 
of  the  circle  of  the  conditions  needed  for  the  growth  and  nourish- 
ment of  Christian  morality,  of  self-sacrifice  and  brotherly  love. 
Hence  the  Prelates  in  Rome  have  ever  been  noted  for  rapacity, 
arrogance,  ambition,  sensuality ;  alternating  these  indulgences, 
on  occasion,  as  at  the  present  moment,  with  vindictiveness  and 
cruelty. 

Follow  the  Catholic  priests  to  England,  or,  better  still,  to  the 
United  States.  Here,  without  losing  the  vices  inherent  in  such  a 
theocracy,  they  become  morally  as  well  as  intellectually  invigo- 
rated in  the  light  kindled  by  Protestantism,  to  the  which  they  are 
so  unwillingly  exposed.  They  do  their  best  to  put  out  this  hated 
light,  feeling  that  they  can  never  be  at  home  in  it,  that  in  the  end 
it  must  be  fatal  to  them.  In  Protestant  countries  priests  of  Rome 
always  cut  somewhat  the  figure  of  owls  by  day. 

What  intellectual  force  it  has,  Catholicism  owes  to  Protestant- 
ism. By  Protestantism  I  do  not  here  mean  merely  Calvinism,  or 
Anglicanism,  or  Lutheranism,  or  any  other  sectarian  ism,  but  the 
imperishable  spirit  of  mental  freedom  which  has  in  all  ages  burst 
up  through  the  crust  of  ecclesiastical  usurpation — the  perennial 
protest  of  the  soul  against  spiritual  authority — the  continuous  as- 
sertion of  the  rights  of  conscience.  This  spirit  is  the  moral  life 
of  humanity.  The  Romish  Church,  striving  ever  to  crush  it,  has 
found  in  this  strife  a  permanent  stimulant  to  intellectual  exertion. 
In  the  midst  of  Protestant  churches  themselves,  this  same  spirit, 


struggling  ever  for  absolute  liberty,  rises  upi?om  a9eeper  deep, 
protesting  against  priestly  dominion,  however  tempered.  Its  sub- 
limest  manifestation  was  against  Catholicism  through  the  great 
Luther,  under  whose  mighty  blows  the  Papacy  staggered.  In 
the  throes  of  its  despair  it  gave  birth  to  Jesuitism,  which  is  the 
offspring  of  the  collision  between  light  and  darkness,  and  which 
gives  evidence  in  its  nature  of  its  monstrous  parentage,  exhibiting 
the  cold  glitter  which  intellectual  light  makes  on  a  ground  of 
moral  gloom.  Jesuitism  is  henceforth  the  indispensable  armor  of 
Popery. 

With  the  advancement  of  culture  the  clerical  is  overtopped  by 
the  literary  and  scientific  classes.  A  vivifying  book  rarely  comes 
now-a-days  from  the  clergy,  Protestant  or  Catholic.  Creeds  are 
not  the  nurseries  of  originality.  Original  minds  on  their  side  are 
prone  to  interrogate  creeds  with  very  little  reverence  ;  and  a  heart 
of  deep  sympathies  solves  all  theological  questions  in  the  flame  of 
its  love  and  justice. 

On  the  other  hand,  priests,  while  arrogating  to  themselves  a 
spiritual  superiority,  reflect  the  moral  condition  of  the  population 
around  them.  Like  man,  like  master.  Thus  the  priest  of  Mex- 
ico fights  cocks,  and  the  Cardinal  in  Rome,  and  the  Anglican 
Bishop  in  London  play  whist.  The  successors  of  St.  John  and 
St.  Peter  fighting  cocks  and  playing  whist,  while  Christendom  is 
agasp  for  want  of  a  vivifying  faith  !  In  all  things  how  effects  and 
causes  interplay  one  upon  the  other. 

Some  conclusions  : 

That  a  man  should  never  give  permanent  or  irresponsible  power 
over  himself  to  any  other  man. 

That  as  men  are  wisely  wary  of  trusting  their  purses  or  their 
persons  to  others'  keeping,  much  more  should  they  refuse  to  trust 
their  souls. 

That  to  do  so,  is  to  abdicate  one's  manhood. 

That  Nature  designs  the  mind  to  be  developed,  not  moulded, 


30  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

That  irresponsible  rulers,  priestly  or  princely,  must  in  the 
main  be  knaves  ;  for  irresponsibility  indurates  the  conscience. 

That  force  is  the  law  of  evil,  that  is,  no  law,  but  like  all  evil,  a 
breach  of  law. 

Let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  Switzerland,  whence  we  have 
been  floated  away  on  this  current  of  thoughts,  which  are,  how- 
ever,  pertinent  to  her  condition ;  for,  republic  as  she  is  these  five 
hundred  years,  she  too  has  had  her  princes  and  her  priests. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

SWISS  REPUBLIC BADEN-BADEN THE   NUN PEACE-CONGRESS   IN  FRANKFORT. 

FOR  the  most  part  in  Switzerland,  political  power  was  from  the 
first  absorbed  and  retained  by  a  few  families.  In  the  greater 
number  of  Cantons  a  majority  of  the  inhabitants  had  no  voice  in 
public  affairs.  Those  in  which  the  whole  people  participated  did 
not  contain  one  tenth  of  the  entire  population.  Switzerland, 
strange  as  this  may  sound,  has  learned  democracy  from  France. 
Until  the  French  revolutions,  especially  those  of  -30  and  -48, 
what  between  the  predominance  of  aristocratic  families  or  of  Ro- 
man priests,  Switzerland  was  as  little  progressive  as  any  of  her 
neighbors.  She  was  a  Republic  with  aristocratic  institutions — a 
Republic  of  the  bastard  Venetian  species.  But  the  democratic 
element  was  there  and  recognized,  only  not  developed.  Thence, 
the  popular  impulse,  communicated  by  France  to  Europe,  if  not 
caught  up  with  more  alacrity  by  the  Swiss  than  by  the  Germans, 
found  in  them  a  mould  fitted  to  give  it  at  once  practical  shape. 
In  the  coming  conflict  between  Democracy  and  Despotism,  Swit- 
zerland is  destined  probably  to  play  a  part  worthy  of  her  origin. 

After  having  been  a  short  time  in  Switzerland,  to  be  out  of  it 
is  like  resting  after  work.  For  the  mind  that  has  been  weeks  on 
the  stretch,  heaved  up  into  mountains  and  furrowed  with  gorges, 
the  subsiding  back  to  its  normal  level  is  a  repose.  Joy  as  it  was 
to  get  into  Switzerland,  to  get  out  again  brought  its  pleasure.  So 


32  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

it  ever  is  with  healthy  enjoyments ;  they  end  naturally,  leaving 
the  spirit  refreshed  for  the  soberer  tenor  of  its  way. 

From  Basle  steam  hurried  us  in  a  few  hours  to  Baden-Ba- 
den, whose  crowd  of  motley  visitors  was  waging,  as  at  most  "  fash- 
ionable watering-places,"  an  hourly  battle  with  ennui.  By  suc- 
cessive assaults  of  dressing,  driving,  dining,  dancing,  gossipping, 
gambling,  strolling,  they  manage  to  keep  Time  under ;  so  that 
even  the  professional  idler,  whose  sprightliest  companion  is  his 
cigar,  finds  that  he  can  beat  "  the  enemy"  day  after  day,  without 
the  trouble  of  a  thought  to  help  him.  Then,  a  Congress  of  plot- 
ters against  freedom  would  hardly  have  assembled  more  Kings, 
and  Queens,  and  princes,  the  very  presence  of  whom,  in  such 
abundance,  so  magnetized  to  most  of  the  company  the  common 
air,  that  simple  breathing  was  a  continuous  intoxication,  enough 
of  itself  to  make  life  delicious.  It  would  be  unjust  not  to  partic- 
ularize, as  the  chief  attraction  of  Baden-Baden,  its  green,  varied 
valleys,  and  the  wooded  hills  that  make  them.  By  help  of  these, 
a  few  choice  friends  and  books,  with  the  privilege — which  need 
not  be  despised — of  cutting  at  will  into  the  above  mentioned  arti- 
ficial stores,  a  summer  might  be  spent  in  Baden-Baden  in  a  way 
that  would  make  one  desire  to  repeat  it. 

From  midst  the  town  flights  of  steps  led  me,  on  a  Sunday 

morning,  up  a  steep  height,  about  two  hundred  feet,  to  the  palace 
of  the  Grand  Duke.  Begilded  and  bedamasked  rooms,  empty  of 
paintings  or  sculpture,  were  all  that  there  was  to  see,  so  I  soon 
passed  from  the  palace  to  the  terrace  in  front  of  it. 

A  landscape  looks  best  on  Sunday.  With  the  repose  of  man 
Nature  sympathizes,  and  in  the  inward  stillness,  imparted  uncon- 
sciously to  every  spirit  by  the  general  calm,  outward  beauty  is 
more  faithfully  imaged. 

From  the  landscape  my  mind  was  soon  withdrawn,  to  an  object 
beneath  me.  Glancing  over  the  terrace-railing  almost  into  the 
chimneys  of  the  houses  below,  my  eye  fell  on  a  female  figure  in 


THE  NUN.  33 

black,  pacing  round  a  small  garden  enclosed  by  high  walls. 
From  the  privileged  spot  where  I  stood,  the  walls  were  no  de- 
fence, at  least  against  masculine  vision.  The  garden  was  that  of 
a  convent,  and  the  figure  walking  in  it  was  a  nun,  upon  whose 
privacy  I  was  thus  involuntarily  intruding.  Never  once  raising 
her  eyes  from  her  book,  she  walked  round  and  round  the  enclo- 
sure in  the  Sabbath  stillness.  But  what  to  her  was  this  weekly 
rest  ?  She  is  herself  an  incessant  sabbath,  her  existence  is  a  con- 
tinuous stillness.  She  has  set  herself  apart  from  her  fellows; 
she  would  no  more  know  their  work-day  doings ;  she  is  a  volun- 
tary somnambulist,  sleeping  while  awake  ;  she  walks  on  the  earth 
a  flesh-and- blood  phantom.  What  a  fountain  of  life  and  love  is 
there  dried  up  !  To  cease  to  be  a  woman  !  The  warm  currents 
that  gush  from  a  woman's  heart,  all  turned  back  upon  their 
source !  What  an  agony  ! — And  yet,  could  my  eyes,  that  follow 
the  quiet  nun  in  her  circumscribed  walk,  see  through  her  prison 
into  the  street  behind  it,  there  they  might,  perchance  at  this  very 
moment,  fall  on  a  sister  going  freely  whither  she  listeth,  and  yet, 
enclosed  within  a  circle  more  circumscribed  a  thousand  fold  than 
any  that  stones  can  build, — the  circle  built  by  public  reprobation. 
Not  with  downcast  lids  doth  she  walk,  but  with  a  bold  stare  that 
would  out-look  the  scorn  she  awaits.  No  Sabbath  stillness  is  for 
her, — her  life  is  a  continuous  orgie.  No  cold  phantom  is  she, — 
she  has  smothered  her  soul  in  its  flesh.  Not  arrested  and  stag- 
nant are  the  currents  of  her  woman's  heart, — infected  at  their 
spring,  they  flow  foul  and  fast.  Not  apart  has  she  set  herself 
from  her  fellows, — she  is  thrust  out  from  among  them.  Her 
mother  knows  her  no  more,  nor  her  father,  nor  her  brother,  nor 
her  sister.  In  exchange  for  the  joys  of  daughter,  wife,  mother, 
woman,  she  has  shame  and  lust.  Great  God !  What  a  tragedy 
she  is.  To  her  agony  all  that  the  poor  nun  has  suffered  is  beati- 
tude.— Follow  now,  in  your  thought,  the  two  back  to  their  child- 
hood, their  sweet  chirping  innocence.  Two  dewy  buds  are  they, 


34  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

exhaling  from  their  folded  hearts  a  richer  perfume  with  each  ma- 
turing month, — two  beaming  cherubs,  that  have  left  their  wings 
behind  them,  eager  to  bless  and  to  be  blest,  and  with  power  to 
replume  themselves  from  the  joys  and  bounties  of  an  earthly  life. 
In  a  few  short  years  what  a  distortion !  The  one  is  a  withered, 
fruitless,  branchless  stem ;  the  other,  an  unsexed  monster,  whose 
touch  is  poisonous.  Can  such  things  be,  and  men  still  smile  and 
make  merry  ?  To  many  of  its  members,  society  is  a  Saturn  that 
eats  his  children — a  fiend,  that  scourges  men  out  of  their  hu- 
manity, and  then  mocks  at  their  fall. 

A  nun,  like  a  suicide,  is  a  reproach  to  Christianity  :  a  harlot 
is  a  judgment  on  civilization. 

— In  the  last  days  of  August,  we  found  ourselves  again  in 
Frankfort,  at  the  heels  of  the  Peace-Congress. 

Arms  can't  free  a  people  ;  ideas  only  can  do  that.  But  at  cer- 
tain stages  of  the  liberating  work  of  ideas,  arms  have  to  clear  the 
track  for  their  further  march.  Otherwise  they  would  be  first 
stopt,  and  then  stifled  by  gross  obstructions.  Arms  may  thus  be 
the  instruments  of  ideas, — impure  instruments,  but  the  best,  on 
occasions,  that  an  impure  world  affords.  Threatened  with  drown- 
ing, would  you  be  nice  in  the  means  of  extrication  ?  Freedom 
has  always  used  arms ;  without  them  she  would  have  been 
crushed.  If  honest  men  should  all  turn  members  of  the  non- 
resistance  society,  the  rogues  would  soon  have  the  upper  hand. 

What  can  a  Peace-Congress  do  against  wolves  ?  Put  your 
preachings  into  practice  in  face  of  a  bear.  Without  compunction 
or  a  moment's  theoretical  cogitation,  the  meekest  zealot  of  you 
all,  would  meet  Bruin's  hug  with  the  thrust  of  a  bowie-knife. 
There  may  be  a  time  when  even  a  bowie-knife  can  do  good  ser- 
vice. But  a  bear  is  a  beast  forever  inaccessible  to  thought,  which 
is  the  parent  of  freedom  and  peace.  What  if  you  were  set  upon 
by  a  foot-pad,  who  first  wounds  you  with  a  pistol-shot,  and  then 
rushes  forward  to  rob  you,  or  to  finish  you  with  a  poignard  ? 


PEACE-CONGRESS.  35 

Could  you  keep  your  finger  off  a  trigger,  or,  if  you  had  none, 
help  cursing  your  stars  that  you  were  unarmed.  There  is  but 
one  way  of  dealing  with  a  murderous  assailant.  "  He  who  slays 
with  the  sword,  he  shall  perish  by  the  sword."  The  text  clearly 
applies  to  him,  and  not  to  you.  Upon  him  you  have  fulfilled  it, 
and  there  an  end. 

The  two  millions  of  soldiers  that  garrison  the  continent  of 
Europe,  are  but  legalized  foot-pads.  They  hold  bayonets  to  the 
throats  of  the  nations,  while  kings  and  popes,  and  their  minions, 
rob  their  souls  and  their  pockets,  and  their  lives.  It  is  brute 
force,  compelling  the  mind  in  its  lowest  as  well  as  its  highest 
needs,  crippling  it  in  all  its  means.  Freedom  of  speaking,  of 
printing,  of  meeting,  of  going  and  coming,  of  buying,  of  selling, 
of  associating, — all  are  curtailed,  hampered,  or  suppressed. 
Every  right  of  manhood  is  maimed  or  crushed.  Against  such 
violence  what  defence  is  there  1  Incalculably  more  effective 
arms  than  pistols,  even  against  pistols  themselves,  are  thoughts — 
when  you  can  use  them.  And  at  this  moment,  in  the  face  of 
artillery  and  the  hangman,  they  are  used  with  an  efficiency  that 
startles  the  gods  of  gunpowder. 

Were  the  conflict  confined  to  civilized  Europe,  it  might  be 
brought  to  an  end  without  bloodshed.  Vienna  and  Berlin,  and 
even  bemitred  Rome  would  soon  capitulate  to  the  fiery  assaults 
of  all-conquering  thought.  But  semi-barbarous  Russia,  who  fears 
freedom  and  proscribes  ideas,  puts  herself  at  the  head  of  the  brute 
cause,  and  gives  it  her  million  of  muskets.  Here  is  a  bear  that, 
under  pretence  of  love  for  order,  would  hug  freedom  to  death. 
And  shall  Freedom,  in  this  strait,  not  thrust  the  sword,  not  pull 
the  trigger  ? 

Let  the  Peace-Congress  address  itself  to  the  Emperor  of  Rus- 
sia. He  is  the  chief,  nay,  the  only  obstacle  to  peace  in  Europe. 
With  an  unchristian  infidelity  the  Emperor  of  Russia  puts  his 
trust  in  the  despotism  of  muskets.  With  his  brute  force  he  up- 


36  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS  IN   EUROPE. 

holds  the  regal  governments  of  the  Continent,  the  which,  being 
dead,  can  only  be  upheld  by  brute  force.  At  Paris  and  Rome, 
as  well  as  at  Vienna  and  Berlin,  Russian  policy  rules.  But  for 
her,  Freedom,  the  nursery  of  peace,  would  be  already  founded 
on  the  ruins  of  Austrian  despotism,  and  her  cause  be  triumphant 
in  Germany.  The  logical  place  for  the  next  Peace-Congress  is 
Warsaw. 

The  Despots  have  divined,  that  peace  can  only  be  the  fruit  of 
freedom.  Thence  they  regard  the  Peace-Congress  as  a  Freedom- 
Congress.  It  is  a  Freedom-Congress.  But  can  it  devise  how,  in 
the  actual  array  of  hostilities,  freedom  can  triumph  without  a 
temporary  alliance  with  gunpowder  ?  Most  of  its  members  are,  I 
suspect,  of  one  mind  with  three  American  delegates  whom  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  meeting  in  Switzerland  on  their  way  to  Frankfort, 
whose  tongues  warmed  at  the  talk  of  a  universal  armed  uprising 
of  the  Peoples  against  the  tyrants  that  degrade  and  despoil  them. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

STAGE-COACH   AND   CAR — CONSERVATISM — GERMAN   BURGHER   AND   POSTILION — 
PRIMARY   EDUCATION   IN    GERMANY. 

AMONG  agreeable  contrasts  cannot  be  classed  that  between  a 
steam-driven  car  and  a  German  stage-coach.  On  the  railroad 
from  Frankfort  to  Cassel,  there  was,  in  1850,  between  Friedberg 
and  Giessen,  a  chasm  which  we  were  three  hours  in  getting  over 
by  coach.  What  a  good  thing  is  a  McAdam  road  !  It  deserves 
the  point  of  admiration.  Wherewith  then  shall  we  point  the  sen- 
tence that  tells  of  the  railroad  ?  To  pass  from  the  one  to  the 
other  is  like  poverty  after  affluence,  like  a  good  whistler  after 
Jenny  Lind,  like  beer  after  Burgundy.  How  we  grapple  to  us 
what  we  once  get  possession  of.  Who  would  give  up  the  railroad 
or  the  newspaper  ?  Ask  the  freshman  to  go  back  to  the  school- 
room. A  progress  takes  hold  of  us  like  the  growing  fibre  of  our 
frame  :  it  enfolds  our  life.  To  go  back,  is  against  nature.  Our 
lot  is,  to  go  forward. 

Let  Conservatives  bethink  them.  Our  moral  life  is  as  slug- 
gish as  the  "Royal  Mail."  Only  twenty  years  ago  the  mail's 
ten  miles  an  hour  was  very  fast.  'Twas  the  most  that  turnpike 
and  coach  could  do.  Who  then  talked  of  twenty  miles  the  hour, 
not  to  speak  of  fifty,  was  a  dangerous  innovator  or  an  impractical 
Utopian.  The  ten  miles  is  the  most  can  be  got  out  of  the  old 
Church  and  the  old  State.  We  want  a  new  Church,  as  different 
from  the  old  one  as  iron  and  steam  are  from  horse-flesh  and  gran- 


88  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

ite.  Who  dare  say  "  Halt/'  to  the  moral  man  ?  Why  should  I 
doubt  that  we  may  have  a  belief  so  inspiring,  that  our  social  con- 
dition shall,  like  locomotive  speed,  rise  from  ten  to  fifty.  Are  we 
only  mechanical  ?  Can  we  reform  roads  and  not  institutions  ? 
Are  no  more  discoveries  to  be  made  in  the  upper  sphere  ?  Have 
we  read  to  the  end  of  the  book  of  life,  that  we  turn  back  the 
leaves  to  the  first  chapters  again  ?  In  the  presence  of  miraculous 
man,  and  the  mighty  Providence  above  him,  who  dare  define  his 
possibilities  ?  Ye  think  yourselves  believers,  and  ye  believe  only 
in  the  dead  and  the  dying.  The  Barbarian  believes  naught  but 
tradition  and  what  he  sees.  Ye  bandage  your  vision  with  his 
limitations  :  ye  forego  the  right  of  reason,  which  bids  ye  look  be- 
fore as  well  as  after.  Talk  to  the  Barbarian  of  the  railroad  and 
the  electric  telegraph  ;  he  will  laugh  at  you,  if  he  does  not  frown. 
Talk  we  to  you  of  methods  whereby  evil  shall  be  exorcised  and 
good  made  to  prevail  like  sunshine,  of  harmonies  that  shall  con- 
vert human  labor  into  a  life-long  joy,  of  conditions  that  shall  ful- 
fil your  daily  prayer,  "  thy  kingdom  come,  thy  will  be  done  on 
earth  as  it  is  in  heaven," — ye  laugh  or  frown.  Ye  civilized  bar- 
barians, ye  believing  skeptics,  upon  ye  be  this  triple  malediction  ; 
ye  shall  sail  without  the  compass,  travel  without  steam,  and  read 
never  a  printed  page. 

— By  my  side  on  the  top  of  the  coach,  was  an  average  sample 
of  a  German  Burgher, — stout  and  kindly,  intelligent  and  acces- 
sible. It  did  me  good  to  hear  him  curse  all  kings,  particularly 
his  own  of  Prussia.  Not  that  as  a  democrat  I  need  to  be  forti- 
fied in  my  political  creed  by  this  verbal  pulling  down  of  monar- 
chies ;  or,  that  as  a  man  I  take  delight  in  hearing  a  fellow-man, 
even  a  king,  abused.  It  was  as  evidence, — such  as  I  have  had 
much  of  in  the  past  few  weeks, — of  the  emancipation  of  German 
feeling  from  the  thraldom  of  regal  prestige,  that  I  listened  with 
pleasure  to  my  neighbor's  king-cursing  fluency.  No  "  divinity 
doth  hedge  a  king"  any  more  in  Germany.  In  the  Frankfort 


PROLETARIANS.  89 

Assembly,  two  years  ago,  an  orator  said  bitingly  of  his  country- 
men, "  A  German  without  a  prince,  is  like  a  dog  without  a  mas- 
ter." He  could  not  and  would  not  have  said  it,  if  it  had  not 
already  begun  to  cease  to  be  true.  In  these  two  years  the  Ger- 
mans have  not  made  progress  simply,  they  have  made  a  leap. 
They  have,  in  opinions  and  convictions,  leapt  clean  out  of  prince- 
dom. One  is  astonished  to  hear  of  and  to  witness  the  so  rapid 
and  general  conversion  to  democracy.  Principles  of  political 
liberty  and  resolves  to  put  them  into  act,  are  widely  spread  and 
deeply  rooted.  Among  this  thoughtful,  reading  people,  the  ground 
was  well  prepared,  and  the  princes  by  their  perfidy  are  doing 
almost  better  for  the  growing  crop,  than  could  have  done  those 
who  are  to  reap.  There  will  be  a  plentiful  harvest ;  if  it  be 
gathered  in  blood,  the  blood  be  on  the  heads  of  the  traitors  who, 
having  been  again  trusted,  would  again  rule  with  the  old  tyran- 
nies. In  two  years  what  a  revulsion !  After  the  popular  victory 
in  1848,  how  forgiving,  hopeful,  magnanimous,  trustful,  was  the 
whole  German  race :  in  1850,  how  full  of  wrath,  bitterness, 
menace.  There  will  be  no  forgiveness  of  the  past  the  next  time. 
In  the  postilion,  who  from  the  back  of  the  near  wheel-horse 
conducted  our  cumbrous  vehicle,  I  had  a  sample  of  a  German 
proletarian.  Proletarian  means  a  producer  of  men.  The  day- 
laborers  of  Europe  are  esteemed,  first  as  workers,  who  can  be 
bought  at  about  twenty-five  cents  a  day,  to  do  all  agricultural  and 
manufacturing  work ;  and  secondly,  as  breeders,  whose  function 
is  to  keep  full  the  supply  of  workers.  Hence  this  appellation, 
which  denotes  that  the  masses  here  are  valued  as  muscle-endowed 
animals,  not  as  soul-endowed  men.  Our  postilion  had  been 
twenty-six  years  on  the  road,  passing  over  these  same  few  leagues 
almost  daily  ;  and  yet,  of  the  small  neighboring  towns  or  villages, 
so  near  that  the  spires  and  highest  buildings  were  visible,  he. 
knew  the  name  of  scarcely  one.  His  countryman  by  my  side, 
poured  upon  him  from  our  elevation,  volleys  of  bitter  ridicule. 


40  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

The  postilion  was  annoyed,  not  at  being  found  ignorant,  but  that 
he  was  expected  to  know  such  things.  In  his  naivete  there  was 
wisdom,  as  there  so  often  is.  His  feeling  was  an  unconscious 
protestation,  that  personally  he  was  blameless  for  his  ignorance. 
They  are  the  blamable,  who,  under  pretext  of  governing,  convert 
a  man  into  a  carriage-conducting  machine* 

Much  praise  has  been  bestowed  on  the  schools,  and  on  the  uni- 
versality of  primary  instruction  in  Germany.  For  the  compara- 
tive excellence  of  methods  and  the  breadth  of  their  application, 
let  the  praise  stand.  Good  schooling  is  never  a  bad  thing. 
Nevertheless,  when  for  twelve  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four,  men 
are  turned  into  beasts  of  burden,  and  can  then  barely  earn  the 
coarsest  food  and  raiment,  how  much  does  schooling  profit  them  ? 
Many  of  the  German  peasants  are  found  in  mature  life,  to  have 
forgotten  how  to  read  and  write.  What  time  or  occasion  have 
they  to  use  these  high  instruments  ?  To  men  so  belabored,  so 
disfranchised,  schooling  is  almost  a  mockery.  This  postilion  can 
read  and  write.  Had  he  been  never  taught  a  letter,  but  been  al- 
lowed a  voice  in  naming  the  mayor  of  his  village,  and  the  parson 
of  his  church,  I  warrant  he  would  have  known  the  names  of 
every  hamlet  we  passed ;  and  this  in  itself,  barren  knowledge, 
would  have  been  the  attendant  and  sign  of  a  productive  knowl- 
edge of  men  and  things,  denoting  that  his  understanding  had  been 
cultivated  by  animating  contacts,  and  his  heart  enlarged  by  sym- 
pathies beyond  the  petty  routine  of  the  postilion's  duties.  Let 
him  vote  for  his  burgomaster,  his  pastor,  and  his  tax-imposer,  and 
no  fear  but  he  will  take  care  that  his  children  be  provided  with 
the  humanizing  media  of  intercourse,  reading,  writing,  and  arith- 
metic ;  and  no  fear  either  that  they  will  forget  them  from  want 
of  practice.  The  mere  introduction  of  the  penny-post  in  England, 
led  tens  of  thousands  of  poor  people  to  learn  to  read  and  write, 
just  to  avail  themselves  of  the  facility  thus  opened  of  communi- 
cating with  their  distant  relatives.  Open  to  the  laborer  the  fa- 


SCHOOLS.  41 

cility  and  necessity  of  communicating  with  his  neighbors  and 
fellow-men, — his  political  relatives, — on  their  common  interests 
and  rights;  give  him  as  man  the  practical  education  acquired  by 
a  manly  share  in  public  affairs,  and  he  will  be  sure  to  provide, — 
whether  by  public  or  private  means, — for  the  school-instruction 
of  the  boy.  But  this  elevation  of  the  proletarian  is  the  reverse  of 
what  European  governments  desire. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

MAKBUKQ MONUMENT KAILKOAD  TO   CASSEL CASSEL   TO   DRESDEN. 

To  the  traveller  on  this  route,  who  travels  to  see,  I  recommend 
half  a  day  at  Marburg.  A  prettier  site  for  a  small  inland  town, 
he  will  seldom  meet  with.  It  stands  on  the  sides  of  a  hill  that 
projects  like  a  sudden  promontory  into  the  valley  of  the  Lahn, 
and  whose  summit  is  crowned  with  the  old  castle  of  the  Land- 
graves of  Hesse,  round  which  the  town  gradually  built  itself  in 
the  middle  ages.  At  the  outer  base  of  the  promontory  is  the 
church,  pure  and  simple  Gothic,  six  hundred  years  old,  with 
double  towers,  remarkable  for  its  symmetry.  The  station  is  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  distant  from  the  town.  As  you  sweep  up  to  it 
on  the  curve  of  the  railroad,  the  castle  on  the  top  of  the  hill,  the 
old  town  on  its  sides,  the  graceful  church  at  its  foot,  with  a  valley 
running  back  from  its  northern  slope,  make  a  picture  so  capti- 
vating, that  you  rejoice  to  learn  that  this  is  Marburg,  where  you 
are  to  stop. 

On  our  way  up  to  the  castle,  we  passed  the  houses  wheroin 
had  lodged  Luther  and  Zwingli,  when  they  met  here  to  discuss 
transubstantiation.  They  of  course  parted  without  agreeing. 
To  settle  a  theological  question  is  as  easy  as  to  pin  a  ghost  to  the 
wall :  they  are  both  so  purely  within  the  province  of  the  imagi- 
nation. In  the  castle  is  a  chapel,  in  which  Luther  preached.  I 
mounted  into  the  plain  oaken  pulpit,  whence  the  thunderer  had 
launched  his  church-rending  lightnings. 


INNKEEPER  AT  MARBURG.  43 

The  town,  partly  in  shadow,  clustered  round  the  protecting 
castle,  the  twin,  tapering  spires,  and  the  soft  valley  of  the  Lahn, 
seen  up  and  down,  combine  to  give  a  view  from  the  terrace 
which,  in  the  afternoon  especially,  is  enchanting.  As  we  gazed, 
a  train  from  Cassel  came  down  the  valley.  After  rushing  noisily 
past  in  front  of  us,  it  shot  away  in  silence  to  the  south,  under  its 
white  canopy  of  mist,  like  a  cloud  before  a  hurricane. 

To  "  take  mine  ease  in  mine  inn,"  the  inn  must  be  good. 

The  inn  is  the  traveller's  home,  and  he  can't  feel  at  home  in  it 
unless  it  be  cleanly  and  kindly.  Mine  host  and  hostess  are  the 
wayfarer's  father  and  mother.  When  he  alights  they  receive 
him  with  welcome,  good  cheer,  and  a  clean  bed.  These  he  will 
find  at  the  "  Golden  Knight"  (zum  Goklnen  Hitter),  in  Marburg. 
Mine  host  was  a  good  specimen  of  the  German  Boniface  of  a 
small  town — portly,  thriving,  communicative,  familiar  but  re- 
spectful, a  good  judge  of  meat  and  drink,  and  sharing  fairly  with 
his  guests  the  fruits  of  his  judgment.  Twice  a  year  he  goes  to 
the  Rhine  to  replenish  his  cellar.  While  there  he  keeps  his  pal- 
ate susceptible  by  abstinence,  and  surrenders  himself  to  the  gus- 
tative  joy  which  the  Rhine  offers  to  the  discriminating  connois- 
seur, not  until  after  he  has  made  his  purchases.  He  warmed 
towards  me  as  he  perceived  that  I  drank  in  with  relish  his  dis- 
course about  the  localities  where  Liebfrauenmilch,  Oppenheimer, 
Niersteiner  ripen.  As  compliment  to  his  publican  qualities,  and 
as  index  of  his  thrift,  he  owns  a  garden  on  the  skirt  of  the  town. 
His  landlordship  were  incomplete  without  these  few  acres  within 
an  easy  walk  of  his  door,  where  he  rears  fruit  and  esculents, 
and  has  a  daily  pastime  for  his  latter  years.  I  am  bound  to  men- 
tion, for  the  truthfulness  of  my  sketch,  that  at  parting  the  next 
afternoon,  he  played  me  a  very  unfatherly  trick,  having — after 
we  had  paid  his  bill  and  set  out  on  foot  to  the  station — manifested 
a  hard-hearted  indifference  whether  our  luggage  arrived  in  time 
or  not.  Had  I  met  him  within  the  ten  minutes  of  excruciating 


44  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 


suspense  caused  by  his  coldness,  I  should  have  had  difficulty  in 
refraining  from  paying  his  unparental  insensibility  with  very  un- 
filial  phrases. 

After  exploring  the  pretty  valley  that  runs  back  and  brings  a 
tributary  brook  of  most  limpid  water  to  the  Lahn,  we  ascended  a 
hill  across  it  directly  opposite  to  the  town,  wishing  to  get  a  view 
from  this  point,  and  attracted  too  by  a  monument  on  the  summit 
of  the  hill.  The  view  is  a  reward  for  the  ascent  to  any  one  who 
does  not  find  in  the  walk  itself  its  own  reward  ;  and  the  monu- 
ment I  would  not  have  missed  seeing  had  the  road  to  it  been  rug- 
ged  and  steep. 

I  defy  all  the  millions  of  guessers  in  the  United  States  to  divine 
why  this  monument  was  erected.  No  American  imagination 
could  in  such  a  search  come  near  enough  to  have  even  "  warm" 
cried  to  it,  as  in  the  game  of  Hunt  the  Slipper.  After  looking 
round  at  the  panoramic  landscape,  I  turned  towards  the  monu- 
ment, an  obelisk  twelve  or  fourteen  feet  high,  built  of  freestone. 
When  I  had  read  the  inscription.  I  read  it  over  again.  Yes,  there 
could  be  no  mis-reading  ;  the  words  were  plain,  well-cut  Ger- 
man. I  am  counting  perhaps  much  too  largely  upon  my  charac- 
ter for  veracity,  in  hoping  that  it  will  be  able  to  withstand  the 
shock  of  the  reader's  incredulity,  when  I  tell  him  that  their  pur- 
port was  as  follows.  A  princess  of  Hesse-Cassel  had  one  fine  day 
walked  up  to  this  spot,  and  enjoyed  the  views  thence.  To  com- 
memorate this  fact  this  monument  of  stone  was  built  by  some 
grateful  inhabitants  of  Marburg.  And  these  good  Germans  would 
at  times  take  airs  over  us  on  account  of  African  slavery  !  I  must 
in  justice  add  that  it  is  a  monument  of  the  past,  having  been  raised 
about  thirty  years  ago. 

At  every  station  of  the  road  to  Cassel  on  Sunday  after- 
noon, crowds  of  peasants  were  assembled  to  see  the  steam-wonder. 
At  the  snorting  monster,  fire-souled,  and  wheel-pawed,  they  stared 
as  the  aboriginal  Americans  did  at  the  vessels  of  Columbus.  But 


MOMENTUM  OF  HUMANITY.  45 

not  like  them  with  wild  wonderment  and  a  dim  presentient  fear. 
The  white  civilizee  is  within  reach  of  the  beneficence  of  machin- 
ery •  for  the  yellow  savage  it  is  an  unsparing  destroyer,  which 
mows  him  down  the  faster  in  proportion  as  itself  is  the  stronger. 
At  the  flying  "  locomotive,"  whose  wings,  laden  with  a  hundred 
men,  outfly  the  eagle,  the  sun-browned  sons  and  daughters  of 
'abor  gazed  with  an  intelligent  admiration,  as  half  conscious  that 
t  is  a  harbinger  of  better  days. — For  the  emancipation  of  man  all 
oowers  must  co-work  j  the  intellect  with  its  logic  and  its  inven- 
ions,  the  soul  with  its  expansive  wants,  nature  with  the  revela- 
.ions  which  she  so  gladly  makes  to  penetrative  genius.  Industry 
must  join  hands  with  Christianity,  Science  with  Sentiment,  Intel- 
ligence with  Faith.  The  momentum  of  humanity  must  have 
been  already  incalculably  accelerated  by  the  unfolding  of  its  ca- 
pacities, ere  it  can  swing  itself  into  a  wider  orbit.  This  momen- 
tum it  now  has ;  and  as  the  train,  burthened  with  its  scores  of 
tons,  swept  with  fabulous  speed  past  turretted  burgs  and  stately 
castles  in  ruin,  it  was  a  symbol  of  the  present  eager  movement 
among  the  foremost  nations  of  Christendom,  striding  forward  with 
new  energy  and  new  hope,  leaving  behind  the  old  walls  and  tow- 
ers of  defence,  and  careering  into  a  sphere  of  untrammelled  free- 
dom and  unvexed  enjoyment. 

At  Cassel,  the  population  was  all  out  of  doors,  in  the  great 

streets  and  in  the  public  walks,  as  is  the  continental  custom  of  a 
Sunday  afternoon,  the  peasantry  from  the  neighborhood  flocking 
in  to  diversify  and  thicken  the  crowd.  Puppets,  mountebanks, 
and  monkeys  were  entertaining  full-grown  men  and  women.  The 
pleasure  of  the  lower  classes  in  these  childish  spectacles,  is  re- 
flected in  the  upper,  who  delight  to  see  them  enjoy  such  coarse 
emptinesses,  it  being  a  sign  that  they  are  themselves  empty  and 
childish,  and  therefore  governable.  To  be  easily  governed  is,  in 
the  eyes  of  governors,  the  highest  virtue  of  a  people.  I  am  happy 
to  bear  witness  that  this  virtue  is  here  growing  weaker  and 


46  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

weaker.  A  manly  consciousness  is  awakened  in  the  laborious 
masses.  Thence  the  multiplication  of  soldiers,  who  are  the  con- 
stables of  tyrants.  On  these  musket-shouldering  drones,  the 
people  now  scowl  with  feelings  anything  but  childlike. 

Between  Cassel  and  Dresden  lie  five  or  six  degrees  of  longi- 
tude, and  the  territories  of  half  a  dozen  sovereign  states.  This 
space,  dotted  with  towns  of  historic  name,  has  on  the  map  a  for- 
midable look,  Cassel  lying  in  the  west,  and  Dresden  in  the  east 
of  Germany.  But  the  wishing-cap  of  Gothic  mythology  finds  its 
realization  in  a  railroad  ticket.  Wish  yourself  three  hundred 
miles  off,  and  by  having  in  your  pocket  a  printed  slip  of  paper, 
your  wish  is  in  a  twinkling  fulfilled,  even  in  Germany,  where 
the  fiery  "  Locomotive"  has  to  curb  his  impatience,  and  adapt 
his  flight  somewhat  to  the  proverbial  Teutonic  slowness. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

A   DAY   IN  DRESDEN. 

DRESDEN,  the  capital  of  Saxony,  contains  90,000  inhabitants; 
its  collections  of  works  of  art  have  gained  for  it  the  title  of  "  the 
German  Florence;"  its  two  unequal  parts  are  united  by  a  broad 
substantial  stone  bridge  over  the  Elbe,  "  built  with  money  raised 
by  the  sale  of  dispensations  from  the  Pope  for  eating  butter  and 
eggs  during  Lent,"  &c.  <fec.  The  <fecs.  covering  twenty  closely 
printed  pages,  the  reader,  curious  in  such  details,  will  find  in 
"  Murray's  Hand-Book  for  Northern  Germany."  Here  he  will 
have  only  the  sketch  of  a  day  in  Dresden,  from  notes,  taken  down 
on  the  spot,  of  such  "  Scenes  and  Thoughts"  as  presented  them- 
selves successively  to  the  writer,  from  early  morning  till  bed- 
time, on  Monday,  the  9th  of  September,  1850. 

Through  a  window  of  No.  16,  a  spacious  chamber  on  the 
second  floor  of  the  Hotel,  Stadt  Rom,  I  look,  while  dressing,  into 
the  square  of  the  Neu-Markt,  yet  in  shadow,  for  it  is  half- past  six 
o'clock.  Carts,  and  women  bearing  on  their  backs  heavily 
laden  baskets,  are  coming  slowly  in  from  the  country.  Opposite, 
across  the  square,  is  the  great  Picture-Gallery ;  at  the  right,  the 
"  Church  of  our  Lady,"  with  its  stone  dome,  large  and  lofty, 
illuminated  by  the  rising  sun. 

Before  seven,  out  in  the  cool  morning.  Fires  are  already 

lighted,  in  people's  mouths.  We  have  just  past  a  cart  drawn  by 
a  woman  and  dog,  pulling  sociably  in  harness  together,  and  at 


48  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

every  few  steps,  we  come  upon  women  stooping  as  they  walk, 
under  burthens  on  their  backs.  Striking  into  a  street  raked  by 
the  sun, — for  the  air  is  chilly, — we  soon  issue  upon  the  Wills- 
druffer  Place,  set  off  by  a  fountain  in  form  of  an  elaborate, 
feathery,  Gothic  pinnacle ;  and  thence  onward  to  the  Zwinger,  an 
extensive  showy  edifice,  where  are  the  Historical  and  other  Mu- 
seums, partly  destroyed  during  the  late  civil  conflicts.  The  sides 
of  the  building  enclose  a  square,  laid  out  in  walks  and  shrubbery. 
Before  entering,  let  us  read  the  printed  notice  at  the  gate-way : — 
"  These  grounds  are  recommended  to  the  protection  of  the  pub- 
lic." A  greeting  like  this,  wins  at  a  stroke  the  affection  of  the 
stranger.  Such  gentle  fraternal  words,  tell  of  refinement  and 
mutual  trust.  They  made  sacred  to  us  every  blade  and  leaf 
within  the  enclosure.  We  walked  back  to  the  inn  with  the  sen- 
sation that  one  has,  after  receiving  welcome  unexpected  news. 

The  carts  in  the  New  Market-place  have  emptied  their  loads, 
which  are  now  piled  up  breast  high  on  one  side  of  the  square, 
pile  next  to  pile  of  huge  loaves  of  rye  bread,  baked  in  the  neigh- 
boring villages. 

Waiting  for  breakfast  in  the  public  room  of  the  Stadt  Rom, 
from  a  seat  by  the  corner  window,  I  have  a  level  view  of  the 
whole  square,  and  a  close  one  of  the  current  of  passers  in  and 
out  of  it,  through  a  street  that  runs  by  one  side  of  the  hotel. 
People  have  not  a  brisk  auroral  air ;  they  look  relaxed  instead  of 
braced.  They  don't  go  at  the  day  vigorously.  This  early  aspect 
of  awakened  Dresden,  is  of  a  town  that  takes  its  leisure.  After 
breakfast,  I  sauntered  across  to  the  sunny  corner  of  the  square, 
towards  the  church,  where  the  market-women  with  their  baskets 
of  vegetables  are  chatting  and  chaffering.  Their  heads  are  with- 
out covering.  If  upon  the  living  brain  the  sun  could  breed 
thought,  as  upon  the  dead  he  breeds  maggots,  what  vaulted  brows 
would  crown  the  faces  of  European  peasants,  what  Moses-like 
coruscations  would  shoot  from  their  parturient  foreheads.  But 


THE  GREEN  VAULT.  49 

then  they  would  cease  to  be  peasants,  to  be  the  drudge-horses  and 
patient  oxen  that  they  are.  The  sun  breeds  only  brownness  and 
dryness,  which  embellish  not  the  feminine  physiognomy.  The 
market-women,  however,  look  ruddy  and  cheerful,  and  show 
well,  as  country  people  always  do,  by  the  side  of  the  townfolk. 

At  nine,  by  appointment,  with  other  sight-seers,  to  the 

Green  Vault  (das  Grune  Gewolbe), — a  regal  curiosity-shop, 
stocked  with  Mosaics,  jewels,  trinkets,  miniature-carvings  in  wood, 
ivory,  and  precious  metals,  and  other  costly  rarities.  Here  and 
there  is  a  bit  having  the  unworn  stamp  of  beauty  ;  but  the  most 
of  them  are  not  works  of  Art ;  that  is,  works  embodying  thought, 
sentiment,  or  vivid  corporeal  reality  in  beautiful  forms.  They 
are  skilful  handiwork,  with  little  head  or  heart- work  ;  the  toil- 
some shapings  of  uninspired  fancy  ;  the  lifeless  leavings  of  Art, 
elaborate  nothings  ;  fruits  of  the  patronizings  of  tasteless  Princes. 
The  most  precious  jewels  were  absent,  having  been  removed  for 
safe-keeping  to  the  Fortress  of  Konigstein.  They  showed  us  one 
unique  natural  product, — a  crystal  globe  twenty-two  inches  in 
circumference,  a  solid  transparence,  a  flawless  mineral  purity, 
purged  by  subterranean  fires. 

The  Historical  Museum  is  an  abstract,  written  in  daggers  and 
breastplates,  of  the  history  of  war  during  the  latter  half  of  what 
are  called  the  middle  ages.  These  coats  of  mail  are  contemplated 
with  a  certain  favor  if  one  will  regard  them  as  life-preservers 
during  the  stormy  period  of  chivalry.  After  all,  these  old-time 
brawlers  and  spoilers  took  devilish  good  care  of  their  skins. 
Just  before  quitting  the  Museum  we  came  unexpectedly  upon 
arms  of  a  totally  different  and  immensely  more  effective  kind,  the 
pen  of  Goethe  and  the  modelling-stick  of  Thorwaldsen. .  These 
modest,  tiny  weapons,  what  conquests  have  they  not  made  ! 
They  lay  in  their  little  case  a  mordant  irony  on  the  performances 
of  the  Duke  Georges  and  Prince  Henrys,  whose  effigies  on  horse- 
back, armed  cap-a-pie,  we  had  just  seen,  and  whose  exploits,  only 


63  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

heard  of  through  the  mouth  of  the  droning  cicerone,  we  had  al- 
ready forgotten.  It  is  a  humane  surprise  prepared  for  the  visitor, 
thus  to  quicken  his  spirit  with  these  modern  holy  relics,  after  it 
has  been  wearied  with  such  a  flat  reiteration  of  profane  antiquities. 

We  have  time  before  dinner  to  look  upon  some  of  the 

splendors  in  the  Collection  of  Pictures,  one  of  the  richest  in  Eu- 
rope. Passing  with  hasty  glances  through  the  broad  galleries, 
liung  by  the  procreant  hand  of  genius,  we  soon  found  ourselves 
at  their  centre,  before  the  masterpiece  of  masterpieces,  the  Ma- 
donna di  Sto.  Sisto  of  Raphael.  When,  after  gazing  at  it  often, 
you  happen  to  be  in  the  congenial  receptive  mood,  which  a  work 
of  art  demands,  in  order  to  be  appreciated,  the  wonderful  perfec- 
tions of  this  picture  reveal  themselves.  Those  two  heads,  the 
Mother  and  Child  !  In  the  Madonna  is  the  plenitude  of  womanly 
life  and  beauty  ;  grace  united  with  power,  strength  with  sweet- 
ness. What  a  grand  contour  of  head,  yet  soft  and  feminine ; 
calm,  earnest,  with  a  deep  look  of  unspeakable  beatitude.  The 
whole  and  the  individual  features,  regular  as  Greeks  could  have 
made  them,  and  yet  without  coldness  or  limitation,  but  warm  as 
happiest  maternity  and  of  infinite  suggestiveness. — The  Child  has 
a  wise,  almost  wizard  look.  But  for  the  earnestness  and  mystic 
depth  in  the  eyes,  one  might  think  it  the  head  of  an  urchin  who 
would  prove  hard  to  manage, — and  in  truth  the  man  Jesus  was 
unmanageable,  a  protestor  and  reformer,  a  rebel  against  the 
priestcraft  of  his  time.  The  big  eyes  look  like  loop-holes  through 
which  the  Past  is  peering  thoughtfully  and  sadly  into  the  Future. 
The  hair  is  wild  and  unkempt.  The  head  and  face  are  not  regu- 
lar, but  running  over  with  beauty ;  infantile  and  beyond  child- 
hood ;  shining  with  an  inward  light,  that  ennobles  the  features 
with  the  glow  of  human  intellect  and  sympathy.  With  the  in- 
stinct of  genius,  Raphael  has  made  the  head  large,  but  the  size 
is  absorbed  by  the  light  of  the  expression. — The  two  up-gazing 
Cherubs  at  the  base, — the  types  of  love  and  joy,  the  focusses  of 


RUBENS.  61 

infinite  rapture,  marvellous  little  winged  heads, — are  in  power 
and  beauty  entirely  subordinated  to  the  un winged  Jesus. — This 
is  a  picture  that  Fame  has  never  caught  up  with. 

Ere  we  quit  the  Gallery  let  us  pause  for  a  moment  before 
another  of  its  chief  treasures, — Neptune  stilling  the  Tempest,  by 
Rubens.  At  the  command  of  Neptune,  standing  in  a  shell  borne 
on  the  waves  by  sea-horses  with  heads  and  necks  above  water,  and 
followed  by  sea-nymphs,  the  angry  winds  with  black  wings  are 
reluctantly  retiring.  What  breadth  and  power  of  conception,  ex- 
pression  and  coloring.  One  is  nerved  by  looking  at  this  picture. 
Those  three  prancing  heads  are  a  great  creation.  Rubens  has 
here  brought  to  view  the  original  types  of  the  horse  species,  the 
progenitors  of  the  whole  equine  race,  such  fire  is  there  and  inex- 
haustible strength,  such  a  nervous  dilation  in  those  heads,  darting 
lightnings  from  eye  and  nostril. 

At  one, — a  wholesome  hour, — we  sat  down  with  a  score  of 

fellow-diners  to  the  public  dinner  in  the  hotel.  The  dishes,  served 
successively,  were  soup,  fish,  mutton-chops  with  red  cabbage, 
roast  veal,  rice  pudding — a  modest  repast  which  cost  forty  cents 
in  money  and  one  hour  and  a  quarter  in  time. 

The  human  capacity  of  adaptation  is  nowhere  more  forci- 
bly exhibited  than  in  the  acquired  callousness  to  the  suffering 
which,  in  Europe  especially,  assaults  the  compassion  at  every 
turn,  and  which,  but  for  this  pliancy  to  circumstances,  would  keep 
the  spirits  forever  low  and  banish  smiles  from  the  countenance  of 
man.  But  there  are  spectacles  to  which  no  use  of  custom  can  so 
harden  us  but  that  the  heart  will  always  sadden  in  their  presence. 
In  going  up  to  our  chamber  after  dinner  we  had  one  of  these, — a 
woman  bearing  on  her  back  such  a  load  of  wood,  that  as  she 
slowly  set  foot  before  foot  in  the  ascent,  so  bent  was  she  under  the 
weight  that  her  face  and  hands  almost  touched  the  step  above,  her 
burthen  thus  converting  her  corporeally,  as  it  tends  to  do  spir- 
itually, into  a  down-looking  quadruped.  One  hurries  by  such 


52  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

sights,  that  the  pang  they  give  may  be  quickly  quenched  in  the 
sea  of  busy  movement  about  us  ;  but  against  them,  and  even 
against  those  to  which  we  are  outwardly  hardened,  men  enter 
more  and  more  frequently  and  more  and  more  deeply  an  inward 
protest  as  they  pass.  A  fact  full  of  hope  is  the  accumulating 
protestation  against  cruelty  and  wrong.  This  ceaseless  heart-cry 
is  a  prophecy.  Feeling  precedes  conviction,  conviction  precedes 
action.  The  one  predicts  the  other.  A  present  ideal  of  healthy 
minds  is  the  promise  of  a  future  reality.  They  whose  convic- 
tions outrun  their  practice,  whose  aspirations  are  purer  than  their 
deeds,  who  know  the  littlenesses  of  our  dislocated  existence  for 
what  they  are,  let  them  cherish  uplifting  thoughts  ;  these  are  not 
barren  dreams,  they  are  the  roots  of  a  more  generous  life. 

Who  is  this  that  greets  us  at  the  landing  with  an  humble  smile 
from  her  arch  face  ?  Her  face  is  more  than  arch,  it  is  pretty 
besides,  and  would  be  more  than  pretty,  were  the  soul  that  lights 
it  itself  fully  lighted.  Her  brown  hair  is  carried  back  in  that 
easiest  simple  manner  called  Grecian.  Her  head  turns  grace- 
fully on  a  fair  round  neck ;  and  her  shoulders,  bust,  waist,  and 
whole  figure  are  in  harmony  with  her  head.  Her  arm,  bare  and 
white,  would  fix  the  eye  of  Greenough  or  of  Powers  in  admira- 
tion, while  on  his  organ  of  form  he  took  its  impress  for  ideal  uses. 
Were  you  to  meet  her  in  a  cottage,  you  would  think  the  cottage 
blest  by  her  sweetness, — in  a  drawing-room  of  jewelled  beauties, 
she  would  seem  to  be  born  for  this  elegant  rivalry, — in  a  Palace, 
you  might  forget  the  Princess  in  the  woman.  Poor  Saxon  Girl, 
whose  mien  doth  beget  for  thee  such  divers  perfections  upon  the 
imagination  of  a  passing  stranger,  lower  than  the  most  modest  of 
these  conditions  is  thy  lot.  Not  for  thee  is  even  the  cottage,  with 
the  breadth  of  earth  and  sky  to  compensate  for  its  cabined  uncul- 
tured existence.  Perhaps  from  its  rustic  hearth  thou  wast  lured 
by  the  glare  of  the  city,  towards  which, — impelled  by  the  deep 
need  of  human  communion, — so  many  of  thy  sisters  rush  to  burn 


ASPECT  OF  DRESDEN.  63 

their  ignorant  wings  in  its  fire,  and  to  drag  ever  after  their  black, 
ened  bodies  towards  an  obscure  grave.  Thee  Nature  destined 
for  a  higher  sphere.  Where  the  texture  is,  the  sculptor's  crea- 
tive hand  fashions  the  Goddess  from  the  raw  block  :  thou  hast  the 
texture  wherewith  the  plastic  power  of  favoring  circumstances 
could  have  fashioned  a  household  Goddess,  an  honored  accom- 
plished woman.  But  Fortune,  to  whose  caprices  so  many  are 
committed  in  this  blind-folded  world,  not  joining  hands  with  Na- 
ture, thou  wast  disorbed,  and  now  dost  perform, — and  that  with 
the  cheerfulness  of  a  happy  temperament, — the  low  daily  routine 
allotted  to  the  chambermaid  of  an  inn. 

How  few  people  are  in  their  right  places.  And  worse  still ; 
were  there  to  be  a  thorough  shuffling,  a  general  change  and  in- 
terchange of  conditions  and  positions,  forward  and  backward  and 
sideways  and  upward  and  downward,  still  we  should  not  get  into 
them.  The  right  places  are  not  there. 

Dresden  has  attractive  environs.  But  the  weather  is  just 

now  so  unseasonably  cold,  that  an  open  carriage  is  rather  a  pen- 
ance than  a  pleasure.  We  shall  content  ourselves  this  afternoon 
with  an  intramural  stroll.  The  town  has  an  air  of  old-fashioned 
elegance.  There  is  a  courtly  quiet  in  the  streets.  Business  and 
traffic  are  secondary.  Many  of  the  people  that  you  meet  seem 
to  have  nothing  to  do,  and  those  who  bear  on  them  some  badge  of 
business  are  going  about  it  so  leisurely,  that  most  of  them,  one 
would  think,  will  be  overtaken  by  to-morrow  ere  they  get  through. 
The  absence  of  commercial  bustle  is  an  agreeable  characteristic 
of  Dresden. 

At  six  we  walked  to  the  large,  commodious  theatre  lately  erected 
near  the  river.  The  piece  was  an  opera,  a  good  one,  The  Water- 
carrier.  About  the  time  that  the  curtain  of  the  opera  in  London 
and  Paris  rises,  that  of  Dresden  falls.  At  half-past  eight  we  were 
back  to  the  hotel,  taking  a  late  tea,  while  our  neighbors,  male  and 
female,  at  the  public  table  were  busy  with  the  early  German  sup- 


54  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

per  of  meat,  bread,  cheese,  and  salad,  of  which  last,  especially, 
the  Germans,  who  have  an  enviable  gift  of  copious  feeding,  con- 
sume a  huge  quantity. 

It  is  past  nine.     Although  the  opera  is  over,  the  Dresden 

day  is  not  yet  closed.  If  the  reader  will  go  along  with  me,  I  will 
bring  him  where  he  will  witness  what,  if  he  has  not  been  in  Ger- 
many, he  never  has  witnessed.  In  a  few  minutes  we  are  on  the 
Bruhl  Terrace,  which  forms  a  delightful  walk  within  the  town, 
along  the  river  and  high  above  it.  Here  is  a  cafe  :  we  pay  a 
few  coppers  at  the  door,  and  enter  a  hall  capable  of  holding  three 
hundred  people :  it  is  now  quite  full.  At  the  opposite  end,  a 
large  band  of  good  performers  is  executing  excellent  music.  The 
company,  half  females,  are  seated  at  numerous  tables  of  different 
sizes,  supplied  with  coffee,  tea,  beer,  wine,  and  some  with  eata- 
bles. This  kind  of  cheap,  good,  sociable,  conversational  concert, 
is  characteristic  of  Germany.  One  feature  caps  its  Germanism  : 
nearly  all  the  men  are  smoking.  One  hundred  of  them  simulta- 
neously puffing  out  smoke  generated  in  their  mouths  by  their 
lungs,  which  act  as  bellows  on  ignited  tobacco,  in  a  closed  hall 
neither  large  nor  lofty,  where,  intermingled  with  the  smoke-pro- 
ducers, are  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  softer  (I  cannot  here  say 
sweeter)  sex,  witnesses  of  the  production,  and  absorbents  of  the 
product.  The  throng  of  people  sit  for  hours  in  the  compound 
rankness  of  this  unventilated  hall,  with  an  insensibility  to  bad  air 
that  verified  with  clenching  emphasis,  how  custom  may  usurp 
upon  nature.  If  the  lungs  and  olfactory  nerves  of  delicate 
women  will  not  protest,  their  shawls  and  silks  should,  against  this 
foul  violation  of  the  rights  of  women.  For  ourselves,  as  dutiful 
sight-seers,  we  bore  the  pressure  upon  the  arterial  circulation  of 
this  deoxygenated  nicotenized  atmosphere  for  twenty  minutes,  and 
then  fled  to  the  terrace.  The  Germans  do  not  smoke,  they  are 
smoked.  Tobacco  has  got  the  upper  hand  of  them. 
By  ten  we  were  back  to  the  hotel  and  No.  16, 


CHAPTER  X. 

WEIMAR CEMETERY SCHILLER'S  STUDY GALL  AND  GOETHE CRANIUM  OF 

SCHILLER — WEIMAR'S  HIGH  INHABITANTS. 

THE  next  day  towards  noon  we  were  suddenly  beset  by  a  de- 
sire to  be  in  Weimar.  I  like  in  travelling  to  give  way  to  an  im- 
pulse of  this  kind.  In  the  wilful  breaking  up  of  the  set  sequence 
of  things,  there  is  a  remunerative  assurance  of  freedom.  You 
start  without  the  ceremony  of  giving  yourself  notice.  You  go 
solely  because  you  want  to  go.  -In  this  there  is  an  enlivening 
breach  of  routine,  a  luxury  of  liberty.  You  snatch  a  sunny  hol- 
iday from  amidst  the  sombre  slaveries  of  this  conventional,  whip- 
driven  world.  After  a  hurried  packing,  we  provided  ourselves 
with  the  modern  wishing-cap,  and  alighted  by  early  bed-time  at 
the  "  Hereditary  Prince,"  in  Weimar,  having  rushed  through 
book-selling  Leipzig  and  book-fed  Halle,  just  as  though,  instead 
of  being  populous,  notable  towns,  they  had  been  only  relay  houses 
by  the  wayside. 

I  walked  again  in  my  old  paths  through  the  tranquil  town 

of  Weimar.  'Tis  like  arresting,  and  fixing  in  hard  corporeality, 
the  airy  images  of  a  dream,  thus  to  re-behold  after  twenty-five 
years,  the  scenes  of  careless,  laughing  youth.  The  solid  recog- 
nized forms  are  as  cold  and  sad-speaking  as  the  sarcophagi  of 
departed  friends.  One  hovers  about  them  with  a  melancholy  self- 
abandonment.  I  think  I  know  how  a  ghost  feels  who  revisits  the 
haunts  of  his  sublunary  sojourn.  I  peered  as  I  went  into  faces, 


66  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

with  a  hope  of  recognition  or  reciprocated  interest ;  but  all  were 
cold,  exclusive,  introverted,  just  like  the  faces  of  other  streets. 
I  passed  before  Goethe's  house.  At  that  door  I  had  once  knocked, 
— with  timidity,  as  having  no  claim  to  admittance  but  that  which 
his  fame  gave  me, — and  within  I  had  met,  shining  with  kindliness, 
that  great  glittering  eye.  For  what  is  left  of  his  mortal  part  I 
must  now  seek  in  the  vault. 

And  thither  I  bent  my  steps.  He  who  after  the  lapse  of  a 
quarter  of  a  century  revisits  the  resorts  of  his  youth,  must  betake 
him  to  the  graveyard  to  find  the  vestiges  of  his  former  acquain- 
tance. The  cemetery  of  Weimar,  lying  just  outside  the  town,  has 
an  untrimmed  look  which  suits  a  cemetery.  Flowers  and  shrub- 
bery arid  grass  are  not  much  curtailed  of  their  natural  freedom. 
This  wildness  and  unclipt  exuberance  is  in  harmony  with  the  spot, 
and  gives  to  it  a  softer  and  a  quieter  aspect.  In  the  centre  is  a 
small  chapel  for  funeral  services.  Through  the  middle  of  the 
floor  a  large  round  opening,  guarded  by  a  balustrade,  communi- 
cates with  the  Grand-ducal  vault  below,  wherein,  with  those  of 
the  sovereign  family,  lie  the  bodies  of  Goethe  and  Schiller.  We 
descended  by  the  stairway  into  the  vault.  It  was  neither  dark 
nor  damp,  and  was  mildly  perfumed  by  burnt  incense.  Here 
was  naught  of  the  gloom  of  a  charnel-house.  'Twas  as  though 
the  immortal  spirits  of  the  great  inmates  had  purified  it  of  all  stains 
of  death.  Beside  their  holy  remains  we  lingered  with  feelings  of 
cheerful  elevation.  It  was  not  a  place  for  sadness.  The  coffins 
are  raised  three  or  four  feet  from  the  ground.  Those  containing 
the  bodies  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  are  side  by  side,  apart  from  the 
others.  I  stood  between  them,  with  my  hands  resting  one  on 
either  coffin. 

The  late  Grand-Duke  of  Weimar,  Charles  Augustus,  the  friend 
of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  and  who  is  illustrious  by  that  friendship, 
requested  that  his  body  should  be  placed  between  the  bodies  of 
the  two  Poets.  He  had  a  right  to  make  the  request :  he  was 


PHYSIOLOGY  OF  THE  BRAIN.  57 

worthy  of  that  exalted  place.  He  was  not  merely  their  friend 
and  generous  protector ;  he  had  a  soul  that  sympathized  with 
theirs.  Whether  it  be,  that  his  successors,  animated  by  a  low 
jealousy,  are  unwilling  to  recognize  his  right  to  this  great  privi- 
lege, or  that  they  are  influenced  by  a  still  more  ignoble  motive, 
his  request  has  not  yet  been  complied  with.  The  coffin  contain- 
ing  his  body  lies  by  itself. 

In  the  study  of  Schiller  I  sat  down  one  morning  at  his 

desk,  and  with  ink  dipped  from  an  inkstand  of  Goethe,  I  took 
phrenological  notes  on  a  cast  of  Schiller's  head.  There  was  a 
seat  and  an  occupation !  But  nothing  is  complete  in  this  loose, 
fragmentary  world.  Why  was  there  no  mould  from  the  cranium 
of  Schiller's  renowned  friend  ?  Because  men  are  such  laggards 
behind  truth.  The  momentous,  brilliant  discovery  of  the  physiol- 
ogy of  the  brain  was  promulgated  in  the  beginning  of  this  cen- 
tury, and  first  in  Germany  by  its  great  discoverer,  Gall.  And 
still,  though  so  easily  verified,  it  remains  unacknowledged  by 
scientific  men  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  In  freer  England, 
and  freest  America,  its  truth  has  been  forced  upon  the  scientific 
in  a  great  measure  by  the  enlightened  perseverance  of  the  laity. 
Goethe,  whose  sympathy  with  the  spirit  and  processes  of  Nature 
was  the  source  of  his  wisdom,  meeting  with  Gall,  who,  in  a  tour 
through  Germany,  was  expounding  his  newly-made  discovery, 
received  it  at  once  into  his  mind,  with  that  large  hospitality  which 
he  always  extended  to  new-comers  from  the  realms  of  Nature. 
Pity  that  he  had  not  cultivated  acquaintanceship  into  intimacy. 
His  name  would  have  been  a  passport  to  this  fruitful  truth,  and 
thus  have  hastened  by  half  a  century  its  acceptance  among  his 
countrymen.  In  that  case,  moreover,  his  friends  and  executors, 
knowing  the  scientific  value  of  a  fac-simile  of  his  noble  head, 
we  should  have  had  his  by  the  side  of  Schiller's,  to  compare  to- 
gether and  contrast  the  two. 

The  brain  of  Schiller,  from  its  large  size  and  general  confor. 

3* 


58  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

mation,  denotes  uncommon  energy,  great  force  and  warmth  of 
character,  and  irresistible  mental  momentum.  In  his  organiza- 
tion there  was  a  rich  mingling  of  powers.  What  he  undertook 
he  went  at  with  a  zeal  that  rallied  his  whole  nature  to  the  ser- 
vice, with  a  volume  of  impetus  that  bore  him  on  with  burning 
velocity,  and  with  a  resolution  that  no  obstacle  could  stay.  His 
undertakings  were  high,  his  aspirations  noble.  Onward,  onward, 
upward,  upward  !  might  have  been  his  device.  With  all  this 
fiery  enthusiasm,  this  impatient  activity,  he  undertook  naught 
rashly.  He  was  at  once  impetuous  and  prudent.  He  was  self- 
confident,  but  with  consciousness  of  his  gifts  he  united  an  insa- 
tiable thirst  for  better  than  he  could  furnish.  His  ideal  was  so 
exalted  it  kept  him  ever  learning  and  expanding.  Goethe  was 
often  astonished,  when  they  would  meet  after  a  not  very  long 
separation,  to  find  what  progress  he  had  made  in  the  interval. 
His  intellect  was  under  the  spur  of  his  poetic  expansions  fed  by 
his  hearty  impulses.  His  mind  was  kept  at  red  heat.  His 
nature  was  earnest,  and  even  stern.  If  there  was  in  him  no 
sportiveness  or  humor,  neither  was  there  any  littleness.  His  love 
of  fame  was  strong,  but  he  sought  to  gratify  it  by  lofty  labors. 

Schiller's  intellect  was  broad  and  massive,  not  subtle  nor  pene- 
trative. Hence,  with  all  his  material  of  sympathy  and  inborn 
passion,  wherewith  he  energized  and  diversified  his  characters, 
they  lack  individuality  and  compactness.  In  the  most  finished 
there  is  a  certain  hollowness.  It  is  not  so  much,  that  they  are 
not  distinctly  enough  differenced  one  from  the  other,  as  that  each 
is  not  tightly  knit  up  into  itself,  as  in  Shakspeare  and  Goethe. 
Schiller  was  not  the  closest,  most  scrupulous  thinker,  and  thence 
in  creating  characters  he  could  not  thoroughly  interpenetrate  the 
animal  and  sentimental  vitality  with  the  intellectual,  which  inter- 
penetration  must  be  in  order  that  each  personage  have  his  definite, 
rounded,  vivacious  existence.  Nor  is  the  action  in  his  dramatic 
structures  always  bound  up  in  the  severest  logical  chain.  Schiller 


SCHILLER.  59 

\\as  not  a  Poet  of  the  highest  order;  he  was  not  prophetic,  not  a 
vales.  He  did  not  deliver  truths,  or  embody  beauty  in  creations, 
so  much  above  the  standard  of  his  age  that  they  have  to  wait  for 
a  higher  culture  to  be  fully  valued.  His  generalizations  have 
not  the  unfading  brilliancy  which  those  truths  have  that  are 
wrought  in  the  mine  of  emotion  by  the  intensest  action  of  reason. 
Between  his  intellect  and  his  sensibility  there  was  not  that  perfect 
accord  which  makes  the  offspring  of  their  union  at  once  veracious 
and  ideal,  and  elastic  from  the  compactness  of  their  constituents. 
His  grasp  of  intellect  was  not  so  strong  as  was  his  imaginative 
swing.  When  the  cast  was  put  into  my  hands  what  first  struck 
me  was  the  want  of  prominence  in  the  upper  part  of  the  forehead. 
Speaking  of  his  early  flight  from  Wurtemberg,  Schiller  de- 
scribes the  joy  he  felt  in  having  thenceforward  no  other  master 
than  the  Public.  To  an  ardent  young  Poet  it  could  not  but  be  a 
joy,  akin  to  that  of  moral  renovation,  to  escape  from  the  suffocation 
of  tyranny,  to  find  himself  rid  of  a  narrow  King  and  face  to  face 
with  the  broad  multitude.  But  there  is  a  still  higher  Tribunal, — 
through  which  too  the  Public  is  in  the  end  more  surely  and  perma- 
nently won  than  by  direct  appeal  to  itself, — the  tribunal  of  Truth. 
To  this  and  this  alone  the  true  Artist  feels  himself  amenable. 
For,  the  Artist's  function  is,  to  purify  the  sensibility  of  his  fellow- 
men,  to  instruct  them  by  awakening  a  poetic  admiration,  to  chas- 
ten their  taste.  By  creations  in  harmony  with  the  absolute  true 
and  beautiful,  he  develops,  and  cultivates  the  latent  aesthetic  capa- 
bility of  the  mass.  His  part  is  to  be  a  teacher,  not  a  flatterer  or 
prosaic  purveyor.  Great  Artists  are  always  above  their  Public. 
Did  Shakspeare  suit  himself  to  the  common  judgment  of  his  day  ? 
So  little  so,  that  even  the  shrewdest  of  his  contemporaries  dis- 
cerned not  half  the  meaning  and  merit  of  his  wonderful  creations. 
He  himself, — sublime  isolation, — was  the  only  one  of  his  time  who 
knew  their  transcendent  worth.  To  think,  that  for  more  than  a 
century  there  was  in  the  whole  world  but  one  man  who  entirely 


60  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

enjoyed  the  Tempest  and  Lear,  who  was  capable  of  fully  loving 
Imogen  and  Juliet,  and  that  man  was  Shakspeare.  What  kind 
of  appeal  to  the  general  judgment  of  Charles  the  Second's  genera- 
tion was  Paradise  Lost?  Wordsworth  scorned  the  Public,  who 
laughed  at  him,  and  having  survived  a  half-century  his  earlier 
Poems,  had  the  personal  enjoyment  of  a  tardy  justice,  his  genius 
being  acknowledged  by  a  more  "  enlightened  Public"  than  that 
which  first  so  coldly  greeted  him,  his  later  contemporaries  paying 
him  reverence  as  a  true  Priest  in  the  service  of  Beauty  and  Truth. 
He  had  to  make  the  taste  by  which  he  was  appreciated.  Goethe, 
mentioning  in  a  letter  to  Schiller,  the  limited  sale  of  one  of  his 
best  Poems,  Hermann  and  Dorothea,  comforts  himself  by  adding 
ironically, — "  we  make  money  by  our  bad  books."  And  Schiller 
himself,  who  always  wrote  in  pursuit  of  a  refined  ideal,  says 
somewhere,  that  the  Artist's  mission  is  to  scourge  rather  than  to 
truckle  to  the  spirit  of  his  age. 

It  is  much  for  a  man  to  possess  several  eminent  qualities  that 
keep  him  on  a  high  level.  Schiller  was  upborne  by  his  poetic 
nature  and  his  love  of  humanity.  He  had  not  the  deepest  sensi- 
bility for  truth.  Thus,  although,  under  his  poetic  and  generous 
inspirations,  he  appreciated  and  practically  fulfilled  the  Artist's 
function,  his  impulse  when  first  freed  was  towards  fame.  From 
the  same  source, — that  is,  the  absence  of  arched  rotundity  in  the 
region  of  conscientiousness, — I  would  infer  a  want  of  punctuality 
in  engagements,  literary  and  other,  and  venture  to  conjecture, 
that  by  this  failing  his  friend  Goethe  was  occasionally  somewhat 
put  out. 

Among  the  precious  relics  was  the  bedstead  whereon  Schiller 
slept,  and  whereon  he  died  at  the  early  age  of  forty-six.  Often 
at  night,  he  put  his  feet  into  a  tub  of  cold  water,  placed  under  his 
writing-table,  in  order  thereby  to  keep  himself  awake.  He  worked 
his  brain  to  the  uttermost,  and  wore  himself  out  with  the  noblest 
labor.  It  were  easy  to  figure  him  seated  at  his  desk,  with  "  vis- 


SCHILLER  AND  GOETHE.  61 

ionary  eye"  and  furrowed  brow,  intently  elaborating  thoughts 
which  his  pen  hurriedly  seized,  when  a  knock,  drawing  from  him 
an  unwilling  "  Herein,"  he  would  lift  his  eyes  with  a  look  of  al- 
most sternness,  for  the  unwelcome  interrupter ;  and  then  suddenly 
his  countenance  would  relax  and  beam,  as  the  tall  figure  of 
Goethe  advanced  through  the  opening  door,  and  rising  with  an 
eager  motion,  he  would  greet  his  friend  with  cordial  words  ana 
hand-grasp.  And  the  fever  of  his  mind  would  subside.  The 
calm  power  of  the  self-possessing  Goethe  would  soothe  him 
without  lowering  his  tone ;  and  when,  after  Goethe's  depart- 
ure, he  set  himself  again  to  his  work,  it  would  be  with  the  re- 
freshed feeling  of  one  who,  towards  the  close  of  a  midsum- 
mer's day,  has  just  bathed  in  the  shady  nook  of  a  deep,  tranquil 
stream. 

On  one  side  of  the  desk  is  a  sliding  chess-board,  to  be  drawn 
out  when  wanted.  Here,  the  guardian  of  the  house  declared, 
Goethe  and  Schiller  sometimes  played.  This  I  refused  to  credit, 
and  put  it  down  as  a  false  tradition.  Games, — even  those  in- 
volving bodily  exercise, — are  the  resource  of  the  vacant ;  and  I 
would  not  believe  that  two  such  full-brained  men,  whose  inter- 
views were  to  them  both  enlivening  thought-breeders,  would  ever 
dedicate  their  tete-a-tete  meetings  to  this  solemn  frivolity,  this 
ingenious  emptiness,  this  silent,  sapless  pastime.  Still,  against 
the  circumstantial  conclusions  of  reason,  there  was  the  sliding 
chess-board. 

Owing  to  some  misunderstanding  between  Goethe's  heirs 

and  executors,  his  house  is  only  opened  one  day  in  the  week,  and 
even  then  his  study  is  not  shown.  On  entering  the  drawing- 
room,  I  perceived  that  there  had  been  crowded  into  it  sets  of 
porcelain,  piles  of  prints,  vases,  and  other  articles  such  as  a  man 
of  Goethe's  celebrity  and  tastes  would,  in  a  long  life,  collect  by 
purchase  or  gift.  The  room  looked  like  a  crammed  curiosity- 
shop.  Without  exchanging  a  word  with  a  person  who  was  there 


62  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

to  serve  as  expounder,  I  turned  back,  and  with  feelings  of  disgust 
instead  of  satisfaction,  left  the  house. 

I  contented  myself  with  the  outside  of  the  abodes  of  Herder  and 
Wieland. 

After  I  had  studied  the  cast  from  Schiller's  cranium,  and 

had  thoughtfully  wrought  out  a  correspondence  between  it  and 
his  mental  endowments  as  exhibited  in  his  life  and  writings,  fit- 
ting the  cast  to  the  character,  and  the  character  to  the  cast,  as  is 
the  pleasant  way  with  phrenologists,  I  learnt  from  a  gifted  phy- 
sician in  Weimar,  that  there  was  a  slight — a  very  slight — doubt 
as  to  whether  the  cranium  from  which  the  cast  had  been  taken, 
was  that  of  Schiller.  When,  many  years  after  his  death,  the 
bones  of  Schiller  were  dug  up,  to  be  removed  to  the  Grand-ducal 
vault,  it  was  found,  that  his  body  had  been  buried  so  near  to  two 
others,  that  the  sexton  was  not  absolutely  certain  which  of  the 
three  skeletons  was  his.  Goethe  confirmed  the  sexton's  decision, 
from  the  arm-bones  of  that  one  which  the  sexton  believed  to  be 
Schiller's,  declaring,  that  no  other  man  in  Weimar  had  arms  of 
such  length.  The  testimony  of  the  sexton's  memory  and  Goethe's 
inference,  I  make  bold  to  corroborate  with  the  cranium,  whose 
size  and  shape  are  in  harmony  with  the  man  and  poet  Schiller, 
such  as  we  know  him  from  his  life  and  writings. 

Goethe,  Schiller,  Wieland,  Herder.  They  still  inhabit 

Weimar.  Once  they  trod  its  streets  as  flesh-and-blood  men, 
whose  daily  living  was  a  benefaction  and  an  adornment.  Now 
they  abide  in  it  as  genii,  and  make  the  little  town  large  by  their 
large  spiritual  presence.  They  attend  you  wherever  you  go, 
sanctifying  and  beautifying  your  path  by  their  magical  potency. 
They  beckoned  me  into  the  palace,  where  four  rooms  have  been 
dedicated  to  them,  one  to  each,  whose  walls  are  ennobled  by 
painted  scenes  from  their  works.  Walking  in  the  park,  the 
Grand  Duke  passed  me  with  his  simple  equipage ;  but  I  had  just 
come  from  the  "  Garden-House"  of  Goethe,  and  the  presence  of 


THE  GREAT  DEAD.  63 

the  great  poet  and  sage  was  so  vivid,  that  to  me  he  was  the  living 
reality,  and  the  reigning  Duke  went  by  like  a  phantom.  I  might 
say  with  the  concluding  lines  of  the  beautiful,  touching  dedica- 
tion to  Faust, — 

Was  ich  besitze  seh'  ich  wie  im  weiten, 

Und  was  verschwand  wird  rair  zu  wirklichkeiten.* 

The  great  dead  are  the  most  living  inhabitants  of  Weimar.  The 
town  was  to  me  a  cemetery,  and  each  house  in  it  a  sepulchre, 
which  sent  forth  by  day  instead  of  by  night,  its  coated  or  gowned 
ghost.  The  time  best  to  enjoy  the  company  of  Weimar's  high 
inmates,  were  midnight,  when  the  present  generation  being  in 
their  tombs,  one  would  be  free  from  their  petty  intrusion.  But  at 
that  solemn  hour  the  wearied  traveller  sleeps,  and  if  perchance  he 
dreams,  his  visions  are  apt  to  be  more  dyspeptic  than  poetic. 

*  "What  I  possess  I  see  as  in  the  distance, 
And  what  is  gone  comes  back  in  firm  consistence. 


CHAPTER  XL 

EISENACH — THE   WARTBURG LUTHER. 

ON  our  way  back  from  Weimar  to  Frankfort,  we  stopped  at 
Eisenach,  that  we  might  go  up  to  the  Wartburg,  and  look  out 
over  the  wooded  hills  and  valleys  of  Thuringia,  from  the  same 
window  through  which  Martin  Luther  daily  looked  for  ten  months. 
In  this  little  room,  himself  a  prisoner,  he  kept  on  at  his  sublime 
work,  the  liberation  of  Christendom  from  papal  imprisonment. 
Here,  plying  his  sinewy  pen,  he  wrote  those  words  which  Rich- 
ter  calls  half  battles ;  and  taking  off  from  the  Bible  the  Latin 
cloak  wherewith  priestcraft  had  hitherto  concealed  it,  he  clothed 
it  in  warm,  homely  German,  which  the  newly  invented  types 
snatched  up,  and  poured  by  tens  of  thousands  upon  his  awaken- 
ing, spirit-hungered  countrymen. 

Pause  we  a  few  moments  on  the  Wartburg,  while  we  recall  the 
early  life  of  this  wonderful  man.  The  best  monuments  of  men 
are  their  lives,  and  those  of  our  benefactors  we  never  tire  of  con- 
templating. In  their  self-written  inscriptions  there  is  an  enduring 
•  significance.  We  are  fortified  by  coming  near  to  their  greatness. 
It  is  a  profitable  curiosity  that  pries  into  the  modest  beginnings  of 
men  whose  matured  lives  have  swollen  to  so  broad  a  current,  that 
they  inundate  the  history  of  their  kind.  Only  the  greatest  rivers 
are  eagerly  traced  to  their  source. 

The  boy  out  of  whom  grew  the  gigantic  man,  Martin  Luther, 
once  begged  in  the  streets  of  the  town  there  beneath  us,  singing 


LUTHER'S  FATHER.  66 

before  houses  to  earn  bread,  as  was  the  custom  then  in  Germany 
for  poor  school-boys.  Dame  Ursula,  widow  of  John  Schweichard, 
taking  pity  on  the  child,  gave  him  a  home  in  her  house,  and  kept 
him  at  school  in  Eisenach  for  four  years,  after  which  he  entered 
the  University  at  Erfurth,  where  his  father  was  then  able  to  sup- 
port  him.  "  Luther,"  says  Michelet,  "  writes  of  his  benefactress 
with  words  of  emotion,  and  on  her  account  showed  gratitude 
towards  women  all  his  life." 

Luther's  father  was  a  worker  in  mines.  Like  other  peasants 
of  that  day,  some  of  whom,  in  imitation  of  their  seignorial  masters, 
adopted  armorial  bearings,  John  Luther  took  for  his  arms  a  ham- 
mer. This  symbol  of  his  humble  trade  was  prophetic  of  the  voca- 
tion of  his  son,  for  Martin  proved  to  be  a  hammerer  whose  blows, 
struck  with  the  boldness  of  a  martyr  and  the  force  of  a  Titan,  re- 
shaped Christendom.  He  hammered  Catholicism  out  of  its  cath- 
olicity ;  he  broke  its  universality.  With  the  mighty  sledge-ham- 
mer of  reason,  he  knocked  half  the  limbs  off  of  the  Pope,  who 
since  that  hops  on  one  leg. 

Luther  was  destined  for  the  law  ;  but  like  all  men  in  whom 
are  conjoined  a  large  soul  with  a  large  intellect,  the  study  of  what 
has  been  falsely  termed  the  "  reason  of  humanity."  had  for  him 
no  attraction.  Literature  and  music  were  his  delight.  "  Music," 
he  says,  "  is  the  art  of  prophets  ;  it  is  the  only  one  which,  like 
theology,  can  calm  the  troubles  of  the  soul,  and  put  the  devil  to 
flight."  He  seems  to  have  had  feeling  for  Art;  he  was  the 
friend  of  the  famous  German  painter,  Lucas  Cranach.  The  early 
spontaneous  tendencies  always  denote  important  elements  in  the 
nature  of  a  man.  The  geniality  which  in  Luther  underlay  the 
dogmatic  theologian  and  brawny  combatant,  was  an  ingredient 
of  his  greatness. 

The  more  powerful  the  nature,  the  less  is  it  liable  to  be  directed 
by  circumstances.  A  warm,  vigorous  mind  makes  new  circum- 
stances us  a  medium  for  itself,  and  resists  the  old  ones.  This 


66  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

initiative  potency  is  the  source  of  progress  in  the  world.  But  the 
strongest  cannot  wholly  withdraw  himself  from  the  action  of  out- 
ward pressure,  nor  even  from  the  controlling  effect  of  single 
events.  Luther  had  just  entered  manhood,  when  the  current  of 
his  life  received  a  new  direction  from  a  startling  incident.  One 
of  his  companions  was  struck  dead  at  his  side  by  a  flash  of  light- 
ning. In  his  terror  he  made  a  vow  to  St.  Anne  to  become  a 
monk  if  he  escaped.  Fourteen  days  later,  after  having  spent  the 
evening  gaily  with  friends  in  making  music,  he  entered  at  mid- 
night the  monastery  of  the  Augustines  in  Erfurth,  carrying  with 
him  nothing  but  Plautus  and  Yirgil.  It  was  two  years  before  his 
father  would  be  resigned  to  this  his  son's  self-immolation.  At  the 
end  of  that  time  he  consented  to  be  present  at  Martin's  ordination. 
A  day  was  chosen  when  the  poor  miner  could  leave  his  work, 
and  he  brought  with  him  and  gave  to  his  lost  child  all  the  money 
he  had  laid  by,  twenty  florins. 

There  is  beauty  in  this  early  passage  in  the  life  of  Luther. 
That  he  should  have  kept  a  vow  taken  at  such  a  moment,  is  proof 
of  his  truthfulness  and  his  resolution.  In  the  act  there  was 
fidelity  and  strength.  Then,  the  grief  of  the  father,  ending  in 
the  bestowal  on  the  son  of  all  his  savings.  One  rejoices  to  meet 
with  touching  facts  like  this  in  the  early  life  of  a  great  man. 
Such  are  always  to  be  found  where  men  are  manly  and  true- 
hearted,  and  it  is  by  the  substance  out  of  which  they  spring 
that  greatness  is  nourished. 

To  turn  monk  is  for  a  man  to  abdicate  his  humanity.  He 
truncates  himself  of  his  upper  endowments.  He  extinguishes  the 
higher  lights  of  life,  those  that  are  fed  by  the  sympathies  of  labor 
and  of  love.  He  cuts  the  myriad  threads  that,  binding  him  to 
his  fellows,  are  the  sole  means  of  unfolding  and  fortifying  his 
manhood.  Thus  isolated,  the  mind, — which  can  not  be  totally 
stifled, — preys  upon  itself.  The  monk  is  abandoned  to  a  moral 
self-defilement.  He  dwindles  to  be  the  shadow  of  a  man,  or  he 


LUTHER  AS  MONK.  67 

bloats  out  to  be  a  beast  with  feeding  for  his  chief  work.  Luther 
could  not  stay  monk,  but  his  initiation  into  a  monastery  was  for 
himself  and  for  Christendom  an  immense  event :  it  was  decisive 
of  his  career.  Monk-like,  he  preyed  upon  himself,  but  thereby 
a  stirring  was  given  to  his  deep  nature.  In  the  terrible  tussles 
of  the  spirit,  light  went  up  in  him  that  otherwise  had  probably 
smouldered  forever.  He  stumbled  upon  a  neglected  Bible. 
Conceive  of  Luther,  with  a  conscience  as  inexorable  as  Rada- 
manthus,  an  intellect  like  St.  Paul's,  unaided  by  other  human 
insight  or  sympathy,  imprisoned  with  unthinking,  unbelieving 
monks,  unlocking  the  Book.  There  was  food  and  an  appetite  ! 
Job  and  Isaiah,  and  David  and  St.  Paul  first  made  known  to 
Luther.  We  are  now  familiar  with  the  Bible.  On  entering 
manhood  we  find  ourselves  possessed  of  its  substance  without 
knowing  how  we  have  come  by  it.  The  Bible  is  a  universal 
heir-loom  in  protestant  families.  But  in  1505  it  was  a  sealed 
book.  If  a  few  learned  recluses  had  read  it,  they  had  merely  read 
it ;  it  fructified  not  in  them  for  their  or  others'  profit.  Were  a 
cohort  of  Angels  to  come  singing  from  the  Heavens  visibly  and 
audibly  celestial  symphonies  in  our  ears,  we  should  hardly  be 
more  amazed  than  was  Luther,  as  his  deep  eager  spirit  suddenly 
found  itself  in  full  communion  with  the  inspired  singers  and 
sages  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  their  large  solemn  souls 
receiving  his  as  the  ocean  receives  a  turbid  great  river,  which 
there  finds  calm  and  transparency. 

In  the  monastery  Luther  had  his  first  great  lesson  He  learnt 
there  faith,  not  from  his  brother  monks,  who  had  none,  but  from 
his  own  thirsting  spirit  that  had  found  its  mate  in  the  grand,  fiery 
soul  of  St.  Paul. 

Without  faith  a  man  is  not  a  lull  man.  By  self-reliance  a 
strong  man  can  do  much,  but  to  do  the  most,  to  self-reliance  he 
must  add  reliance  on  the  HIGH.  "  Things  hoped  for"  must  be- 
come "  substance"  to  his  eyes  by  the  intensity  of  his  belief  in 


68  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

Good.  Into  such  strength  are  his  powers  knit  up  by  this  spir- 
itual attraction,  that  he  is  then,  and  only  then,  ready  and  fit  for 
greatest  undertakings. 

In  the  providential  schooling  that  Luther  went  through  to  train 
him  for  his  destined  task,  the  second  lesson  was  his  journey  to 
Italy.  Had  his  heart  not  been  opened  in  the  monastery,  his  eyes 
would  not  have  been  opened  to  see  what  was  to  be  seen  in  Italy. 
The  poor  Augustin  Monk  set  out  on  foot,  full  of  joy  and  hope 
and  spiritual  life.  On  the  way  he  was  harbored  at  the  monas- 
teries of  his  order.  Coming  down  from  the  mountains  upon 
Milan,  he  was  there  received  into  a  monastery  of  marble  and 
seated  at  a  sumptuous  table.  He  passed  from  monastery  to  mon- 
astery, that  is,  from  palace  to  palace.  Venturing  once  to  tell 
some  Italian  monks  that  they  would  do  better  not  to  eat  meat  on 
Friday,  this  freedom  nearly  cost  him  his  life.  Astounded,  sad- 
dened, the  single-minded  German  pursued  his  foot-journey  through 
the  burning  plains  of  Lombardy.  He  arrived  ill  at  Padua  ; 
still  he  would  not  halt,  but  pushed  on  and  reached  Bologna  al- 
most dying.  Restored  to  health,  he  hurried  forward,  traversed 
Florence  without  stopping,  and  at  last  entered  Rome.  He  fell 
on  his  knees,  raised  his  hands  to  Heaven,  and  cried  out,  "  Hail, 
holy  Rome,  sanctified  by  the  holy  martyrs,  and  by  their  blood 
which  has  been  shed  in  thee."  In  his  fervor  he  ran  from  one 
holy  spot  to  another,  saw  everything,  believed  everything.  He 
soon  discovered  that  he  believed  alone.  He  was  in  Rome,  but 
Christian  Rome  no  more. 

The  fallen  Marius,  seated  on  the  ruins  of  Carthage,  was  a  less 
sublime  spectacle  than  the  erect  Luther  in  Rome,  amidst  the 
ruins  of  the  Christian  faith.  One  spiritually-minded  priest,  amid 
that  sensual  throng  ;  one  living  soul,  amid  all  those  deadened 
souls  ,  one  believer,  amid  Rome's  mitred  scoffers  ;  one  humble, 
God-trusting  man,  amid  haughty  atheists.  What  a  sublime  thing 
is  the  mind  of  a  true  strong  man !  In  that  festering  darkness 


TETZEL.  69 

shone, — invisible  then  and  there, — a  spark  of  living  fire,  from 
the  which  was  to  be  kindled  a  light  that  would  illuminate  and  re- 
warm  Christendom. 

At  the  end  of  fourteen  days  Luther  quitted  Rome.  He  fled  as 
from  a  town  smitten  by  the  plague.  He  says  :  "  I  would  not  for 
a  hundred  thousand  florins  not  have  seen  Rome.  I  should  have 
been  troubled  for  fear  that  I  did  the  Pope  injustice." 

When  Tetzel,  the  papal  vendor  of  Indulgences  in 'Germany, 
having  to  the  long  list  of  orthodox  sins  added  crimes  and  infamies 
of  his  own  imagining,  perceived  his  auditory  struck  with  horror, 
he  declared  with  sangfroid,  "  Well,  all  this  is  expiated  the  moment 
the  sound  of  hard  cash  rings  in  the  strong-box  of  the  Pope."  In 
this  announcement  the  Dominican  church-broker  embodied  in  the 
most  transparent  formula  what  gets  to  be  the  aim  of  all  Hierar- 
chies. They  traffic  in  souls  for  gold  and  dominion.  Through 
hopes  and  fears,  stimulated  by  their  fictions,  they  draw  from  men's 
pockets  the  money  wherewith  to  consolidate  their  power,  and  then 
use  their  power  to  get  more  money. 

After  the  Roman  the  richest  church  in  Christendom,  is  the 
Anglican  ;  and  it  is  so  because  it  is,  after  Rome,  the  best  organ- 
ized. The  recent  schism  sprang  from  an  effort  at  a  still  tighter 
organization,  arid  this  unavoidably  brought  the  Pusey  party  nearer 
to  Rome.  Organization  as  applied  to  a  Church  involves  indepen- 
dence of  the  People.  By  organization  the  Priesthood  gets  a  per- 
manent existence  above,  aside  of,  more  or  less  independent  of,  the 
masses,  according  to  the  completeness  of  the  organization.  This 
independence,  isolation  and  organic  self-subsistence  feeds  ambition 
and  encourages  the  impudent  blasphemous  assumption  of  especial 
God-derived  sanctity. 

The  moral  duties  of  priests  are  well  or  ill  performed,  according 
to  the  moral  atmosphere  of  each  country.  But  the  good  that 
priests  do,  they  do  as  men  not  as  priests.  And  the  richer  they  are 
as  priests  the  less  good  will  they  do  as  men. 


70  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

The  acme  of  priestly  greed,  impudence,  and  imposture,  is  the 
selling  of  Indulgences, — a  practice  by  no  means  yet  disused. 

At  the  time  that  Tetzel  commenced  the  sale  of  indulgences  in 
Germany  Luther  was  Doctor  in  Theology,  Professor  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Wittemberg,  provincial  vicar  of  the  Augustines,  and 
charged  with  the  functions  of  the  Vicar  General  in  the  pastoral 
visits  to  Misnia  and  Thuringia.  He  was  high  in  place,  of  great 
consideration  and  influence.  But  he  was  one  of  those  true  men 
upon  whom  high  trusts  impose  high  duties.  Indignant  at  this  vile 
traffic,  he  applied  to  his  Bishop,  praying  him  to  silence  Tetzel. 
The  Bishop  answered  him,  that  he  had  better  keep  silent  himself. 
He  then  wrote  to  the  Primate,  the  Archbishop  of  Mayence,  but  dis- 
trusting him,  on  the  same  day  that  he  despatched  his  letter  he  affix- 
ed to  the  Castle-Church  of  Wittemberg  his  celebrated  propositions. 

A  great  truth  or  idea  is  something  so  deep  and  subtle,  even 
when  most  simple,  that  the  great  man  who  announces  it  conceives 
not  its  full  import.  He  is  the  depositary  of  a  germ  from  the  Uni- 
versal, the  which  he  is  commissioned  to  plant  and  to  till,  but  it  is 
a  new  seed,  and  to  what  it  will  grow  he  cannot  foresee.  But 
ideas  once  planted  by  man  are  watered  and  nourished  by  Provi- 
dence, for  Providence  doth  ever  countenance  genius.  A  far 
bolder  and  broader  act  than  Luther  himself  knew  was  the  publi- 
cation of  those  propositions.  Striking  at  the  most  accursed  of 
tyrannies,  that  over  the  mind,  he  opened  a  breach  through  which 
by  gradual  enlargements  man  was  to  come  out  from  all  prisons, 
civil  as  well  as  ecclesiastical,  out  of  royal  bondage  into  republican 
liberty,  out  of  Lutheranism  itself  as  well  as  out  of  Romanism, 
— such  progressive  life  is  there  in  truth.  Not  only  were  the  im- 
mense historical  after-consequences  of  his  first  act  necessarily  in- 
visible to  Luther,  but  so  vigorous  and  rapid  was  its  fecundation 
that  its  effects  upon  his  contemporaries  astounded  him.  Upon  no 
one  did  it  work  more  potently  than  upon  himself.  Of  the  eman- 
cipation of  his  own  mind,  not  only  from  papal  but  from  regal  au- 


DECLARATION  OF  MENTAL  INDEPENDENCE.      71 

thority,  brought  about,  unconsciously  to  himself,  by  the  working 
of  his  first  great  anti-papal  act,  there  is  lively  evidence  in  the  new 
treasonable  freedom  wherewith  he  soon  after  wrote  of  Princes. 
He  says  of  them  ; — "  You  ought  to  know  that  from  the  beginning  of 
the  world  a  prudent  Prince  is  a  very  rare  thing,  rarer  still  an  upright 
Prince.  They  are  generally  great  fools  or  great  reprobates."* 

It  was  on  the  31st  of  October,  1517,  that  Luther  affixed  to  the 
Castle-Church  of  Wittemberg  his  propositions. 

Since  the  first  day  of  the  Christian  era  there  had  been  in 
human  annals  no  day  so  pregnant,  so  solemn  as  this.  To  Ameri- 
cans especially  this  day  ought  to  be  holy.  Without  it  there  had 
not  been  that  other  memorable  epoch-marking  day,  the  4th  of  July, 
1776.  On  the  31st  of  October,  1517,  was  made  to  the  world  the 
Declaration  of  Mental  Independence.  Upon  Germany,  upon 
Europe,  it  fell  like  a  trumpet-tongued  summons  from  a  better 
world.  Luther  found  himself  hostilely  arrayed  against  the  Pope. 
That  was  a  fearful  position.  Even  the  great  Luther  shrank 
back ;  and  had  he  not  had  above  his  strong  intellect  a  conscience 
that  would  know  no  compromise  of  principle,  and  behind  it  a 
courage  that  could  brave  all  the  Powers  of  Earth  and  Hell,  he 
would  have  succumbed.  In  the  middle  of  the  19th  century  we 
can  scarcely  conceive  what  strength,  what  moral  grandeur  that 
man  must  have  had,  who,  in  the  beginning  of  the  16th  defied  the 
authority  of  the  Pope.  Luther  did  defy  it  steadfastly.  He  assert- 
ed the  spiritual  self-sufficiency,  the  moral  dignity  of  man.  By 
all  freemen  he  should  be  revered  as  one  of  their  mightiest  deliver- 
ers. Noble,  stout-hearted  Brother;  we  thank  thee  for  thy  great 
courage,  we  thank  thee  for  thy  great  intellect,  and  above  all  we 
thank  thee  for  thy  great  conscience. 

*  The  truthfulness  of  Luther's  picture  of  Princes  has  lately  been  ac- 
knowledged in  Prussia,  where  a  volume  selected  from  his  writings,  contain- 
ing his  opinions  of  them,  was  burnt  by  order  of  government.  Luther  burnt 
in  protestant  Germany !  What  a  close  hug  Kingcraft  and  Priestcraft  are 
giving  each  other  to  strengthen  themselves  against  Democracy. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

WHO   FOLLOWED   LUTHER RACES COLOR CHRISTIANITY PROTESTANTS    AND   CA- 
THOLICS— ENGLISH     AND     SPANISH     AMERICA CONVERSIONS     TO     ROMANISM 

RELIGION. 

IT  is  of  deep  historic  interest  to  note,  who  followed  Luther  in 
this  vast  stride ;  who  in  that  age  was  capable  of  being  freed  from 
the  yoke  of  sacerdotal  usurpation. 

"  0  !  the  difference  of  man  and  man," 

cries  Goneril.  So  different  are  men,  that  there  never  were  two 
just  alike ;  and  at  the  same  time  all  are  so  alike,  that  we  must 
acknowledge  the  cannibal  for  our  brother.  Nations, — organic 
multitudes  geographically  defined, — like  the  individuals  whereof 
they  are  composed,  likewise  differ  one  from  the  other.  Races, 
too, — numbered  by  naturalists  at  from  three  to  six,  each  embra- 
cing many  nations, — differ  broadly  in  aptitudes,  habits,  manners, 
physiognomy,  color.  This  last  quality,  color,  be  it  observed,  is 
not  a  mere  superficial  mark,  but  denotes  deep  differences,  being 
an  index  of  mental  capacity.  At  one  end  of  the  human  scale  is 
the  black  man,  at  the  other  the  white,  between  them  the  brown 
and  yellow.  The  white  man  never  comes  into  contact  and  con- 
flict with  the  others  that  he  does  not  conquer  them.  The  brown 
and  yellow  he  subjugates  or  exterminates,  the  black  he  holds  in 
bondage.  The  two  extremes  meet  in  this  close  union.*  In  color 

*  They  who,  assuming  for  themselves  a  pre-eminence  in  philanthropy, 
run  into  such  extremes  of  opinion  and  indignation,  because  their  white 


THE  WHITE  RACE.  73 

there  is  great  significance.  Nature  is  never  arbitrary,  nor  shal- 
low, nor  illogical.  She  would  not  stamp  one  man  white,  another 
brown,  another  black,  and  mean  nothing  thereby,  or  no  more 
than  surface-diversity  as  among  cattle  or  flowers.  White  and 
black — light  and  darkness — these  are  deep  words.  Whence  is 
it  that  the  white  is  always  at  the  top  of  the  scale  of  humanity, 
the  yellow  in  the  middle,  and  the  black  at  the  bottom  ?  Not  of 
choice,  not  of  outward  influences  are  these  pervading,  enduring 
facts  the  result,  but  of  law  and  inward  motions. 

None  but  nations  of  the  white  race,  and  only  a  few  of  these, 
have  a  civil,  a  political  history ;  that  is,  a  development  and  the 
record  thereof.  History  implies  growth,  that  is,  childhood,  youth, 
maturity.  National  growth  implies  depth  and  a  fund  of  resources. 
In  the  current  of  centuries,  a  people  of  high  organization  unfolds 
itself  from  within,  until  it  reaches  a  refined  multiplex  life.  Slow- 
ly it  traverses  degrees,  planting  itself  on  its  advancements  still  to 
ascend.  Its  annals  are  written  in  comprehensive  institutions  that 
fortify  its  progress,  and  in  monuments,  not  merely  solid  and  en- 
during, like  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt, — for  that  were  not  enough, — 
but  deriving  their  durability  from  their  instructiveness,  like  the 
statuary  and  architecture  of  Greece,  and  the  books  of  the  He- 
brews, Greeks,  and  Romans, — statues  and  books  that  still  live, 
not  because  they  reflect  the  thoughts  and  deeds  of  those  nations, 
but  because  in  their  thoughts  and  deeds  was  the  vitality  that 
springs  from  the  beauty  there  is  in  truth,  and  the  truth  there  is 
in  beauty.  These  three  are  the  only  nations  of  Antiquity  that 
were  nervous  enough  to  create  history,  and  therefore  the  only 
ones  from  whom  the  moderns  have  learnt. 

In  each  of  them,  be  it  noted,  the  democratic  spirit  was  strong, 
but  only  partially  developed ;  for  its  full  unfolding,  Christianity 

brothers  hold  by  inheritance  their  black  brothers  in  bondage,  let  them  look 
discerningly  into  Natural  History.  The  search  may  have  the  effect  of  en- 
larging the  range  of  their  fraternal  solicitude. 

4 


74  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN   EUROPE. 

was  needed, — Christianity,  which  is  the  highest  moral  generali- 
zation ;  which  would  substitute  charity  for  force,  broad  faith  for 
petty  hopes,  justice  for  expediency. 

The  other  races,  ancient  or  modern,  the  colored,  have  not  in 
them  the  spring  for  indefinite  progressiveness,  for  God-clasping 
development,  no  upward  yearning  for  moral  or  intellectual  gen- 
eralization. Feeble  on  their  path  are  the  traces  of  beauty  or  wis- 
dom ;  shrivelled  or  immature  their  intellectual  fruit.  They  have 
no  ripe  art,  no  great  books,  no  history.  They  are  not  expansive, 
not  creative.  They  cannot  clear  the  circle  of  animal  littleness. 
They  lie  bound  in  the  sterility  of  savageism,  or  the  immobility  of 
barbarism:  their  life  is  an  intellectual  and  moral  pauperism. 
They  are  unfinished,  and  according  to  both  history  and  philoso- 
phy,— whose  testimony  when  concurrent  is  clenching, — destined 
not  to  be  finished. 

When  we  use  the  phrase,  "  the  great  cause  of  humanity ;" 
when  we  speak  of  man  as  capable  of  being  indefinitely  enlarged 
by  thought  and  invention,  and  exalted  by  poetry  and  sentiment ; 
when  we  triumph  in  the  growth  of  science  and  culture,  our 
words,  whether  or  not  we  will  it  or  know  it,  apply  only  to  the 
white  race.  History  declares  that  the  only  aesthetic,  the  only 
scientific  man,  is  the  white  man. 

Christianity  is  confined  to  the  white  race,  and  does  not  embrace 
all  that.  This  is  an  enormous  fact  in  the  natural  history  of  man. 
Christianity  involves  a  struggle  of  man  to  put  himself  under  the 
rule  of  his  highest  sentiments.  Only  the  white  race  has  had  the 
inward  impetus,  the  conscious  need,  the  swelling  vitality  to  make 
this  struggle,  to  escape  from  the  tyranny  of  sensualism  into  the 
upper  region  of  possible  liberty  where  predominates  the  spiritual. 

Christianity,  promising  the  reign  of  justice,  leads  to  liberty,  for 
men  can  only  get  to  freedom  through  the  dominion  of  their  noblest 
faculties.  It  has  been  a  path  for  going  forward  and  upward. 
Upon  this  path  mankind  could  only  enter  after  it  had  reached  a 


PREDOMINATING  NATIONS.  75 

certain  growth.  Far  ahead  of  all  others  on  the  earth  are  those 
nations  that  entered  it.  They  and  only  they  have  gone  continu- 
ously forward.  Where  they  have  not,  is  owing  partly  to  this — 
that  the  spirit  of  Christianity — the  aspiration  for  a  higher  life — 
has  been  smothered  by  ecclesiastical  usurpation.  In  the  14th  and 
15th  centuries,  after  ages  of  priestly  tyranny  and  sophistication, 
it  had  got  to  be  so  smothered.  Wickliffe,  Huss,  Jerome  of  Prague, 
Savonarola  re-uttered  this  spirit  to  priest-ridden  Christendom,  and 
prepared  its  soul  to  hearken  to  Luther. 

To  some  nations  are  allotted  high  functions  in  the  life  of  Hu- 
manity. In  ancient  times  the  Hebrews,  the  Greeks,  the  Romans, 
predominated  in  turn  over  the  race.  In  modern  history,  Italy 
emerged  first  out  of  the  mediaeval  darkness.  Among  the  Italians 
there  was,  in  the  13th  and  three  following  centuries,  a  revival  of 
the  Greek  and  Roman  genius.  In  the  struggle  for  emancipation 
from  ecclesiastical  dominion,  commenced  by  Wickliffe,  and  tri- 
umphantly conducted  by  Luther,  the  German  breed  led  the  way. 
The  Reformation  embraced  northern  and  central  Germany,  Swe- 
den, Denmark,  Holland,  and  Great  Britain,  all  belonging  to  the 
German  family.  In  mixed  France  it  took  deep  root,  but  did  not 
gain  over  openly  more  than  one  eighth  of  the  whole  population. 
In  Spain  and  Italy  the  priesthood  was  too  strong,  and  manhood 
then  too  weak  for  it  even  to  take  root.  In  Poland  it  scarcely  got 
a  footing.  In  the  Austrian  dominions,  out  of  a  population  of 
thirty-five  millions,  but  three  millions  two  hundred  thousand  are 
protestants.  In  Switzerland,  more  than  half  the  inhabitants  are 
protestant. 

The  place  held  among  nations,  at  the  time  that  Luther  put 
forth  his  propositions,  by  Spain,  who  rejected  them,  is  now  held 
by  England,  who  accepted  them.  It  is  no  longer  the  petty  Queen 
of  Spain,  it  is  the  mighty  Queen  of  England,  that  can  say,  "  The 
sun  sets  not  in  my  dominions."  Like  the  Ariel  of  her  Shak- 
speare,  England  has  put  a  girdle  round  the  globe.  The  influence 


76  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

upon  the  thought  of  Christendom  exercised  by  Italy  through  her 
Dantes,  her  Machiavellis,  her  Galileos,  in  the  15th  and  16th  cen- 
turies, has  been,  in  the  18th  and  19th,  transferred  to  the  Goethes, 
the  Niebuhrs,  the  Hegels  of  Germany.  Protestant  Holland  shook 
off  the  dominion  of  Spain,  and  erected  herself  into  an  independent 
Republic,  that  for  a  time  disputed  the  sovereignty  of  the  seas 
with  growing  England,  and  was  strong  enough  to  resist  the  power 
of  Louis  XIV.  Catholic  Belgium  remained  subject  to  Spain. 
Where  are  the  colonies  founded  in  America  by  Spain  and  Portu- 
gal and  by  Englishmen  ?  The  Protestant  United  States,  in  power 
and  influence,  take  rank  beside  the  first  nations  of  Europe.  If  a 
people,  like  a  man,  is  prosperous  and  strong  in  proportion  to  the 
number,  variety,  elevation  and  vigor  of  its  thoughts  and  sensa- 
tions, which  are  the  parents  of  deeds,  the  life  of  the  United  States 
for  fifty  years  exhibits  such  an  unprecedented  growth  and  success 
in  all  departments  of  human  activity,  as  to  entitle  them  to  claim 
a  place,  not  beside,  but  in  front  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
To  the  spirit  which  made  Protestantism,  that  is,  the  spirit  of  in- 
dividual liberty,  of  manly  independence,  we  owe  this  progress 
and  unexampled  welfare.  What  is  Mexico,  or  Brazil,  or  Bolivia  ? 
What  part  do  they  play  in  the  stirring,  striving,  Christian  com- 
munity ?  What  conquests  are  they  making  in  the  domains  of 
Nature — what  fruitful  secrets  do  they  wrest  from  her  deep  heart  ? 
What  discourse  is  heard  among  them  of  great  human  interests  ? 
New  ideas,  winged  thoughts,  what  acceptance  do  they  find  among 
the  nations  of  South  America  ?  Ask  their  oracles,  their  priests. 
In  France  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  and  the  revocation 
of  the  edict  of  Nantes  tell  the  strength  of  Protestantism,  and  with 
what  dread  it  filled  tyrants.  At  this  moment  hardly  the  half  of 
Frenchmen  can  be  claimed  by  Rome.  With  the  mass,  Catholic 
observances  are  a  habit  rather  than  a  faith.  Among  the  educated 
there  is  an  almost  universal  religious  disbelief  in  the  Church, 
coupled  with  a  political  belief  in  it  as  an  engine  for  keeping  the 


CONVERSIONS  TO  ROMANISM.  77 

people  ignorant  and  dependent ;  and  for  this  end  it  is  the  most 
efficient  apparatus  that  human  ingenuity  stimulated  by  human 
egotism  could  devise.  The  French  Revolutions  that  have  pulled 
down  the  throne  and  set  up  man,  have  shaken  the  altar  and  put 
God  in  the  place  of  the  Pope. 

In  Italy  the  open  profession  of  dissent  from  the  Romish  Church 
is  not  tolerated.  But  those  who,  despising  its  mummeries  and 
hating  its  extortionate  tyranny,  reject  in  their  hearts  as  well  its 
spiritual  as  its  temporal  assumptions,  are  to  be  numbered  by  mil- 
lions. Let  Italy  become  independent,  and  there  will  be  revealed 
a  sum  of  Protestantism,  of  protesters  against  Priestcraft,  a  tithe 
of  which  will  counterbalance  the  trumpeted  conversions  to  Ro- 
manism from  among  the  idle,  ennuied  "  Nobility  and  Gentry"  of 
England. 

Conversions*  to  Catholicism  in  Protestant  countries  should  in 
most  cases  be  looked  upon  as  a  throwing  out  of  morbid  particles, 
a  salutary  moral  crisis.  People  who,  brought  up  in  the  light 
of  Protestantism,  feel  too  weak  to  bear  that  light,  why  let  them  in 
God's  name  retreat  and  shield  themselves  in  darkness.  Liber- 
ally speaking,  these  losses  are  a  gain.  We  want  to  go  forward, 
and  these  good  souls  have  not  even  the  self-supporting  life  to  stand 
upright ;  they  must  go  back  for  support  out  of  themselves.  Peace 
go  with  them. 

In  this  survey  of  Protestant  and  Catholic  nations,  what  pre. 
sents  itself  as  the  most  striking  contrast  between  them  ?  It  is 
this,  that  not  one  of  the  purely  Catholic  is  independent.  Popery, 
which,  as  an  Italian  writer  says,  "  is  a  Theocracy  founded  on 
the  absolutely  moral  slavery  of  man,"  destroying  individual  in- 
dependence, undermines  national.  Italy,  the  fountain-head  of 

*  These  conversions,  be  it  noted,  are  chiefly  from  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, which  has  features  of  likeness  to  that  of  Rome.  To  weak  minds, 
or  to  those  that  to  a  sensuous  quality  of  intellect  unite  a  peculiar  senti- 
mental organization,  the  transition  from  Anglicanism  to  Romanism  is  logical. 


78  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

Catholicism,  where  Protestantism  is  proscribed  under  penalty 
of  imprisonment  or  death,  has  been  for  centuries  a  prey  to  the 
foreigner.  Portugal,  as  Catholic  as  Italy,  the  favorite  torture- 
house  of  the  Inquisition,  is  a  dependence  of  Protestant  England. 
Spain,  where  by  a  late  concordat  the  ban  against  Protestantism 
has  been  renewed,  is  so  helpless,  that  she  had  within  thirty  years 
to  call  in  a  French  army  under  the  Due  d'Angouleme  to  uphold 
the  tottering  Bourbon  throne,  and  having  lost  nearly  all  her  im- 
mense colonies,  is  now  obliged  to  appeal  to  England  and  France 
to  prevent  the  last  remaining  one  from  falling  into  our  hands. 
Poland, — blotted  from  the  list  of  nations.  Austria, — saved  lately 
from  destruction  by  the  sword  of  Russia.  Ireland, — compare 
Ireland  with  Scotland.  France,  vigorous,  independent  France, 
has  not  only  four  or  five  millions  of  Protestants,  but  how  many 
millions  besides  of  Voltairiens,  until  lately,  when  Skepticism, 
which  is  by  the  nature  of  man  short-lived,  having  passed  away, 
Socialism,  or  a  belief  in  man  involving  a  deeper  belief  in  God,  is 
begetting  a  higher  Christianity  than  has  yet  animated  Christendom, 
— a  Christianity  destined  to  be  far  more  fruitful  than  ever  was 
the  theological,  the  which  however  is  now  everywhere  almost  as 
good  as  dead. 

But  deeper  and  stronger  than  either,  than  Catholicism,  than 
Protestantism,  both  perishable,  is  the  imperishable  Christian  prin- 
ciple of  liberty,  the  quenchless  longing  for  absolute  mental  free- 
dom. Protestantism  was  the  assertion  of  this  principle  against 
the  usurpation  of  Rome.  It  was  a  conflict  for  truth,  but  not 
itself  the  broadest  truth,  that  it  could  not  be  j  a  struggle  for 
emancipation,  but  not  itself  the  largest  liberty,  that  it  could  not 
be.  It  quickly  put  bounds  to  its  own  essence,  the  right  of  private 
judgment,  of  free  inquiry  ;  it  narrowed  itself  to  isms.  It  is  not 
universal  in  its  embrace  ;  it  is  partial,  and  thus  runs  into  Secta- 
'rianism.  It  has  no  Pope,  but  it  has  creeds  ;  it  has  no  monasteries, 
but  it  has  theological  seminaries  ;  it  has  no  independent  hierarchy 


RELIGION.  79 

(except  in  England),  but  it  has  dogmatic  priesthoods.  In  its 
churches  ecclesiastical  abuses  are  vastly  mitigated,  by  no  means 
fully  abated.  Protestantism  has  its*  army  of  priests,  who  are,  too 
many  of  them,  Jewish  in  their  narrowness  and  their  hates,  and 
in  their  assumptions  papal  ;  and  who,  if  they  could,  would,  like 
their  Romish  colleagues,  persuade  us  that  priests  are  essential  to 
salvation,  the  very  depositaries  and  dispensers  of  spiritual  life, 
the  indispensable  bond  to  unite  men  to  God.  In  this  they  serve 
themselves  more  than  God  and  men.  When  a  man  places  him- 
self between  God  and  another  man,  he  intercepts  the  light  and 
casts  a  shadow  upon  his  brother.  He  is  a  false  priest  who  would 
make  himself  indispensable  to  men  as  a  medium  of  union  with 
God.  The  true  priest  aims  to  unfold  the  soul,  and  thus  disclose 
to  it  its  own  innate  powers  and  grandeur. 

A  primary  and  pre-eminent  element  of  our  mental  being  is  re- 
ligion. To  say  of  a  man,  he  is  without  religion,  is  as  much  non- 
sense as  to  say  he  is  without  lungs.  Breathing  is  not  more 
essential  to  the  physical  life  than  is  to  the  moral  a  recognition  of 
the  Infinite,  a  reverential  consciousness  of  the  Absolute  and  Un- 
speakable. So  sophisticated  are  men's  minds  by  one-sided  teach- 
ings, that  they  come  to  regard  religion  as  a  something  they  get 
from  the  priest,  a  spiritual  treasure  guarded  and  dispensed  by  the 
priesthood.  At  stated  periods  they  go  to  Church  to  receive  their 
share  of  it,  like  stockholders  to  the  Bank  to  draw  their  dividends. 
They  have  made  an  investment  in  the  Church  and  leave  the 
management  thereof  to  the  priests,  who  pay  them  in  prayers, 
sermons  and  liturgies.  In  this  way  forms  usurp  the  place  of  sub- 
stance, dead  material  husk  of  spiritual  kernel. 

As  are  the  temperament  and  the  moral  and  intellectual  wants 
of  a  people  so  are  its  divinities,  who  are  modified,  aye  moulded, 
by  the  mental  characteristics  of  each.  Hence  the  difference 
between  the  Gods  of  the  Greeks  and  the  God  of  the  Hebrews,  be- 
tween the  worship  of  the  Hindoo  and  that  of  the  African.  Men 


80  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

can  only  conceive  God  according  to  their  own  capacities.  To 
the  low  man  ever  a  low  God.  As  individual  men  in  their  nar- 
rowness would  have  other  men  like  themselves,  so  aggregate 
men,  men  in  tribes  and  nations  make  God  like  man.  Anthro- 
pomorphism is  the  egotism  of  unemancipated  humanity.  Through 
culture  and  moral  enlargement  we  attain  to  the  conception  of 
he  vitalizing  omnipresent  Deity  as  incorporeal  essence.  As 
man  rises,  the  Deity  shines  the  more  purely  upon  his  heart,  God 
and  man  exalting  one  another.  To  the  upstriving  man  the  Deity 
holds  out  a  helping  hand,  ascending  ever  higher  and  higher,  the 
more  and  more  effulgent  with  intellect  and  love  as  man  mounts 
after  him  towards  the  centre  of  Liberty  and  Truth,  the  eternal 
home  of  the  infinite  Good. 

Jesus,  an  inmate  of  this  heavenly  home,  from  the  depths  of  his 
large  soul  proclaimed  the  law  of  love,  justice,  unity.  This 
solemn,  momentous  proclamation  has  remained  a  prolific  abstrac- 
tion, kept  present  to  the  human  soul  by  the  inborn  need  of  its  ful- 
filment. Only  in  Jesus  himself  burnt  purely  the  light  of  his 
revelation.  The  Apostles  his  agents  were  tainted  with  Judaism. 
And  soon  the  spirit  of  priestcraft,  which  had  crucified  Jesus,  took 
possession  of  his  doctrine  and  soiled  it.  It  is  not  yet  purged  of 
the  soiling.  The  God  of  priestcraft  is  a  God  of  wrath,  inspiring 
fear  more  than  love,  a  priest-made  God  to  serve  priestly  ends  of 
dominion ;  gloomy,  revengeful,  the  oppressor  not  the  liberator  of 
humanity,  whose  messengers  are  oftener  devils  than  angels.  Do 
you  purify  man  by  defiling  God  with  cruelty  ?  By  abasing  man 
do  you  exalt  God  ?  Do  you  strengthen  the  heart  by  compressing 
it  into  intolerant  creeds,  do  you  shelter  it  under  mystic  imagina- 
tions ?  Out  of  trite  fancies  and  sour  sensibilities  you  would  build 
up  Deity,  and  present  as  the  Infinite  the  image  they  make  on 
your  finite  brains.  In  flimsy  phrases  you  would  word  the  Un- 
speakable, in  fleeting  vesture  clothe  the  Eternal,  and  then  you 
solemnly  declare  the  outcome  of  these  your  theological  inventions 


DEGRADATION  OF  DEITY.  81 

to  be  God,  and  summon  us  to  worship  as  the  Creator  this  your 
dwarfish  misshapen  creature. 

What  profit  hath  the  soul  from  these  degradations  of  Deity  ? 
Is  it  not  akin  to  image-worship,  this  petrifaction  of  fallible  inter- 
pretations into  staunch  creeds  ?  Beams  from  the  central  Light 
deflected  through  Judaic  imaginations,  can  they  retain  any 
warmth  for  the  19th  century  ?  What  knowledge  or  nourishment 
is  there  now  in  these  ancient  aspirations  ?  Is  spiritual  life  re- 
plenished  by  feeding  more  on  the  man-made  than  the  God-made  ? 
This  temple  built  with  hands,  what  is  it  to  the  sanctuary  within 
the  heart  ?  This  formal  conned  ritual,  what  is  it  to  the  spontane- 
ous aspiration  of  the  soul  ?  What  are  your  loud  prayers  and 
hymns  to  the  voiceless  communion  with  the  Infinite  ?  The  silence 
of  a  Church  is  voiceful  to  the  solemnity  of  a  man's  conscience ! 
Your  altars,  your  surplices,  your  mitres,  your  cathedrals,  your 
consecrations,  all  are  but  verbiage  and  stitchwork  and  brickwork, 
ostentatious,  transitory,  in  face  of  the  eternal  self- renewing  life, 
the  deep  sacredness  of  the  soul  of  man.  Protestantism,  one-sided 
and  short-coming  as  it  is,  was  the  rehallowing  of  this  desecrated 
sanctuary,  the  reassertion  of  this  unacknowledged  sacredness. 
The  Reformation  of  the  16th  century  rescued  men  from  much  of 
their  captivity  to  priesthood.  It  shattered  many  of  the  bars  that 
made  churches  prisons.  It  is  an  illuminated  phasis  in  the  his- 
tory of  liberty,  of  Christian  deliverance. 

*  The  light  then  kindled  in  a  few  souls  now  shines  over  Chris- 
tendom.    From  the  door  of  the  humble  church  in  Wittemberg, 
where  it  was  first  set  up,  that  light  spread  from  land  to  land,  from 
generation  to  generation,  vivifying  and  fortifying  wherever  it  fell, 
so  that  at  the  present  day  those  nations  that  opened  their  hearts 
the  widest  to  its  rays  are  the  foremost  on  the  earth.     But  from  it, 

*  Chapters  xi.  and  xii.  were  delivered  as  a  "  Lecture  on  Protestantism"  in 
Newport,  R.  I.,  in  January  last.    On  that  occasion   this   concluding  para- 
graphs was  added. 


82  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

all  the  peoples  of  Christendom,  those  who  are  struggling  to 
achieve,  as  well  as  those  who  possess  liberty,  be  they  Catholic  or 
Protestant,  chiefly  draw  their  animation.  Whether  in  America, 
where  to  the  disenthralling,  life-cherishing  principles  of  the 
Reformation*  we  owe  the  best  of  what  we  have  done,  of  what  we 
are,  of  what  we  have,  including  the  privilege  so  happily  habitual 
among  us  that  we  forget  its  value,  the  privilege  I  at  this  moment 
use  of  publicly  speaking  on  things  of  universal  interest  my  hon- 
est thought,  without  fear  of  gaol  or  gibbet ; — whether  in  stead- 
fast England,  the  mighty  mother  of  nations,  who  owes  so  much 
of  her  might  to  her  protestantism,  and  to  her  truth-loving  heart 
that  made  her  accept  it,  where  together  with  an  obsolete  aristoc- 
racy and  an  unspiritualized  church,  a  load  of  dull  Dukes  and 
carnal  Bishops,  there  is  a  fund  of  large  manhood  and  freedom  ; — 
whether  in  France,  where  by  means  of  tyrannical  centralization 
and  military  organization,  both  inherited  from  monarchy,  a  pigmy 
miscreant  has  just  been  enabled  to  enact  a  gigantic  crime  against 
a  long-suffering  but  never  disheartened  nation  ; — whether  in  Ger- 
many, where  protestant  princes,  faithless  alike  to  God  and  man, 
are  foully  leagued  with  Jesuits  and  Cossacks  to  cheat  and  berob 
an  enlightened,  temperate,  and  too  trustful  people  of  what  is 
dearest  in  life,  a  patient  people,  too,  but  who  now  knowing  and 
valuing  their  rights,  give  their  robbers  their  hate,  biding  the  time, 
which  must  soon  come,  when  they  can  give  them  their  ven- 
geance ; — whether  in  Italy,  bleeding,  beautiful  Italy,  where  in 
the  north  the  brutal  Austrian  vainly  strives  to  trample  out  man- 
hood with  the  soldier's  heel,  where  in  the  south  the  Bourbon, 
fanatic  in  ferocity,  slaughters  men  like  cattle,  where  in  the  cen- 
tre, in  majestic  Rome,  the  Arch-despot  of  the  world  blasphemously 
calls  himself  the  vicar  of  Christ,  while,  seated  on  a  throne  built 
of  foreign  bayonets  fleshed  in  the  breasts  of  his  subjects,  he  gives 
one  hand  of  fellowship  to  the  man-shaped  tiger  of  Naples,  and  the 
*  See  note  at  the  end  of  the  Chapter. 


ARCHBISHOP  HUGHES'S  LECTURE.  83 

other  to  the  perjured  traitor  of  France,  and,  encircled  by  greedy, 
lowering  Cardinals,  whose  red  robes  are  dyed  redder  in  their 
brothers'  blood,  he  hearkens  for  the  secret  curses  of  his  awakened 
people,  who  ceaselessly  lust  for  the  blood  of  their  oppressors,  and 
ceaselessly  sigh  for  freedom,  having  learnt  their  cruelty  from 
their  priests,  and  their  aspirations  from  their  own  hearts. — Wher- 
ever the  breath  of  freedom  swells  healthfully  in  man's  breast,  or 
gasps  painfully  in  sobs  and  sighs  ;  wherever  men  possess,  or  are 
striving  for  the  blessings  of  freedom,  not  one  in  any  land  of 
Christendom,  whether  Catholic  or  Protestant,  not  one  of  these 
many,  many  millions  but  owes  much  of  what  he  has,  or  of  the  will 
and  courage  to  desire  and  to  dare,  much  of  his  richest  inheritance 
or  his  noblest  resolution,  to  the  poor  German  miner's  son,  to  the 
moral  boldness,  the  intellectual  might  of  Martin  Luther. 


NOTE. 

IN  a  Lecture  entitled  "  The  Catholic  Chapter  in  the  History 
of  the  United  States,"  delivered  in  New  York  in  March  1852, 
Archbishop  Hughes  says, — "  It  is  altogether  untrue  to  assert  that 
this  is  a  Catholic  country,  or  a  Protestant  country.  It  is  neither. 
It  is  a  land  of  religious  freedom  and  equality."  General  usage 
justifies  the  calling  of  a  people  Catholic  or  Protestant,  according 
as  a  large  majority  of  its  inhabitants  belong  to  the  one  or  the 
other  of  these  religious  divisions.  Thus,  southern  Germany  is 
called  Catholic,  northern  Germany  Protestant ;  Ireland  Catholic, 
England  Protestant.  The  United  States,  where  only  a  fraction, 
about  one  tenth,  of  the  population,  is  Catholic,  are  called,  there- 
fore, Protestant.  But,  apart  from  common  parlance,  what  strictly 
authorizes  a  designation  is,  the  principle  which  rules  a  country 
iu  religious  matters.  By  this  logical  test,  the  United  States  are 


84  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

thoroughly  Protestant,  and  the  Pope's  dominions  in  Italy  thor- 
oughly Catholic.  In  the  United  States,  there  are  absolute  re- 
ligious tolerance  and  liberty  ;  in  papal  Italy,  constraint  and  ab- 
solute religious  intolerance.  Absolute  intolerance  is  a  fundamen- 
tal Catholic  doctrine,  which  is  not  merely  preached  but  severely 
practised,  as  the  world  knows  ;  and  practised  not  only  against 
Italians,  but  also  against  strangers,  so  that  American  Protestants, 
while  in  Rome,  are  not  permitted  to  meet  together  for  public 
worship;  such  outlaws -and  damnable  heretics  are  they  regarded 
by  Pope  and  Cardinals.  In  this  country,  on  the  contrary,  not 
only  is  there  absolute  religious  tolerance,  but  so  productive  is  this 
high  Christian  principle,  that  even  Romish  prelates  here  are 
obliged  to  avow  it,  in  the  teeth  of  the  theory  and  practice  at  head- 
quarters. Thus  Archbishop  Hughes,  in  this  Lecture,  "hopes 
that  it  will  remain  a  land  of  religious  freedom  and  equality  to 
the  latest  posterity."  On  other  occasions  he  has  made  like  dec- 
larations. These  avowals  have  no  significance  as  signs  of  the 
wishes  and  purposes  of  an  Archbishop  ;  for  Catholic  prelates  ex- 
ercise— especially,  we  presume,  when  dealing  with  heretics — a 
right  of  mental  reservation,  which  paralyzes  any  positive  inter- 
pretation that  the  ingenuous  might  put  on  their  words,  and  is 
probably  large  in  proportion  to  the  hierarchical  elevation  of  the 
dignitary.  But  they  have  significance,  as  showing  what  is  the 
power  of  Protestantism  here,  and  what  a  very  Protestant  country 
Archbishop  Hughes  thinks  it,  that  he,  a  nominee  of  the  Pope, 
drawing  from  Rome  his  archiepiscopal  breath,  should  feel  obliged 
to  reiterate  so  unpapal,  so  uncatholic  a  sentiment,  the  which  he 
would  no  more  utter  in  Rome  than  he  would  there  laud  Luther 
or  deny  purgatory. 

"  If,"  says  the  lecturer,  "  there  had  been  only  one  form  of 
Protestantism  professed  in  all  the  colonies,  I  fear  mucn  that  even 
with  Washington  at  their  head,  the  Constitution  would  not  have 
been  what  it  is  in  regard  to  religious  liberty."  But  it  is  the  very 


MARYLAND.  81 

nature  of  Protestantism,  when  it  has  free  play,  to  break  a  people 
up  into  many  sects.  The  essence  of  Protestantism  is  the  right  of 
private  judgment  in  religious  belief,  which  right  leads  unavoida- 
bly and  healthfully  to  multiplication  of  creeds.  Protestantism  is 
a  protest  against  sacerdotal  dominion,  and  the  assertion  of  indi- 
vidual religious  independence.  It  frees  men  from  the  yoke  of 
priesthood  ;  it  empowers  every  man  to  define  his  own  creed,  to 
choose,  or  to  be,  his  own  priest.  This,  the  fundamental  principle 
of  Protestantism,  involves  absolute  religious  liberty.  That  Prot- 
estant sects  and  men  have  violated  this  principle,  proves  only  the 
fallibility  of  men,  but  shakes  not  the  foundations  of  the  principle 
itself.  However  uncharitable  some  sects  in  this  country  may 
have  been,  or  may  be,  in  their  feelings  towards  each  other,  a 
higher  law  controls  them — the  law  of  Protestant  freedom,  which, 
if  not  complete,  goes  yet  to  the  extent  of  guaranteeing  to  each 
man  immunity  from  interference  of  State  or  Church,  against  his 
will,  in  his  religious  profession.  Granting  that  the  multiplicity 
of  sects  led  to  this  general  tolerance  ;  the  multiplicity  of  sects  is 
the  robust  offspring  of  Protestantism,  and  by  its  excess  here 
proves,  that  this  country  is  ultra-protestant. 

In  a  "  Catholic  Chapter  in  the  History  of  the  United  States," 
Maryland  would  of  course  not  be  omitted.  What  right  has  Arch- 
bishop Hughes  to  say  "  Catholic  Maryland,"  he  who  a  few  pages 
before  asserts  that  this  country  is  neither  Protestant  nor  Catholic  ? 
If  this  country  was  not  at  first  and  is  not  now  Protestant,  how  can 
Maryland  be  called  Catholic  ?  Among  the  first  colonists  of  Mary- 
land there  were  Protestants,  as  there  were  Catholics  among  the 
first  colonists  of  the  other  provinces.  The  proportion  of  Protes- 
tants in  the  Maryland  colony  was  at  any  time  as  large  as  that  of 
Catholics  in  all  the  other  colonies,  or  in  the  United  States,  after 
their  independence.  With  his  own  words  we  contradict  Arch- 
bishop Hughes'  designation,  and  say,  that  Maryland  "  was  neither 
Catholic  nor  Protestant.  It  was  a  land  of  religious  freedom  and 
equality." — And  as  such  it  was  in  its  birth  eminently  uncatholic. 


80  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

To  learn  what  the  Catholic  view  of  a  subject  is,  we  must  go  to 
Rome,  to  the  Pope  who  appoints  the  Archbishops  Hughes,  to  the 
Cardinals  who  appoint  the  Pope.  Rome  is  the  fountain  of  all 
Catholic  doctrine.  Now  we  find  that  in  Rome,  at  present,  and  at 
the  time  that  Maryland  was  founded,  and  at  all  times,  nothing  is 
more  abominated  than  this  very  religious  liberty.  "  I  will  not, 
by  myself  or  any  other,  directly  or  indirectly,  molest  any  person 
professing  to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  for  or  in  respect  of  religion." 
Such  was  the  oath  prescribed  by  Lord  Baltimore  for  the  Governor 
of  his  Maryland.  Did  he  get  that  from  Rome  ?  Does  the  Pope 
prescribe  such  an  oath  for  the  Governor  of  his  Rome  ?  Papist 
or  the  dungeon  of  the  Inquisition,  that  is  the  alternative  of  the  na- 
tive Roman.  Torture  or  death  awaits  him  who  there  presumes 
to  exercise  what  Lord  Baltimore  fully  and  formally  granted, — 
freedom  of  conscience.  Not  even  can  strangers  there  worship 
after  their  choice.  Let  a  score  of  Maryland  Protestants  try  it 
within  the  walls  of  Rome ;  they  will  find  that  they  dare  not  even 
meet  together  to  say  their  prayers.  They  will  not  be  indirectly, 
but  most  "directly  molested,"  lest  by  their  Protestant  commu- 
nion the  capital  of  Catholicism  be  desecrated,  and  Pope  and  Car- 
dinals insulted  and  scandalized.  And  yet  Rome's  bemitred 
minions  here,  claim  the  founding  of  Maryland  as  Roman  Catho- 
lic work  ! — If  a  Quaker  were  to  forget  the  precepts  of  his  religion, 
and  take  to  swearing  and  fisticuffs,  would  the  odium  of  his  aber- 
ration fall  on  the  whole  "  Society  of  Friends,"  or  only  on  the 
exceptional  member  ?  If  a  lawgiver  inserts  in  his  code  a  clause 
in  flat  conflict  with  a  fundamental  dogma,  an  inflexible  maxim,  of 
the  church  to  which  he  belongs,  a  clause  the  directly  opposite  of 
which  finds  place  in  the  code  of  that  church  itself;  in  after-years, 
when  this  clause  turns  out  to  have  been  wise  and  creditable,  is 
the  church  to  claim  the  merit  thereof,  and  that  too  when  her  own 
practice  is  still  as  hostile  as  ever  to  the  very  principle  embodied 
in  that  clause  ?  As  the  Quaker,  for  his  unquakerly  conduct  is 


LORD  BALTIMORE.  87 

read  out  of  meeting,  so  Lord  Baltimore,  for  his  official  unpapal 
religious  tolerance,  would  doubtless, — but  for  worldly  considera- 
tions,— have  been  sentenced  to  do  penance  or  to  pay  a  round  sum 
for  absolution,  if  even  he  had  not  been  excommunicated.  For 
the  sin  of  liberality  (although  only  verbal  and  calculated)  in  this 
lecture  and  other  similar  occasions,  Archbishop  Hughes  has,  I 
dare  say,  penitently  to  mortify  the  flesh,  or  else  be  absolved  (be- 
forehand probably)  by  the  Italian  Prince,  his  master. 

The  original  Constitution  of  Maryland,  drafted  by  the  Pro- 
prietor, was  the  work  of  a  clear-headed,  large-hearted  man, — a 
man  so  strong,  that,  in  founding  a  state  so  early  as  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  he  put  at  its  basis  the  broad  human 
rights  of  civil  and  religious  liberty, — a  man  so  Christian,  that 
the  unchristian  intolerance  of  even  the  Church  he  had  chosen, 
did  not  taint  his  heart.  If  the  King  who  endowed  him  with  this 
domain  on  the  Chesapeake  did,  as  has  been  surmised,  as  a  Prot- 
estant, exact  religious  tolerance  in  the  organization  of  the  new 
government,  Lord  Baltimore,  if  this  tolerance  had  been  unpal- 
atable to  him,  would  have  applied  for  lands  to  the  King  of 
Spain  or  of  Portugal ;  and  these  "  most  Catholic"  sovereigns 
would  eagerly  have  granted  to  one  so  honored  in  England  as 
he  was,  a  choice  tract  in  their  rich  American  possessions  ;  and 
there  he  could  have  established  himself,  like  his  neighbors,  to 
his  Catholic  heart's  content,  in  severest  Catholic  exclusiveness. 
But  the  papist  was  not  uppermost  in  Lord  Baltimore's  nature, 
and  therefore  he  had  not  recourse  to  Spain  or  to  Portugal,  and  he 
sought  not  help  of  the  Pope.  The  liberal  clauses  of  his  charter, 
so  hostile  to  the  spirit  of  Romanism,  and  so  deservedly  celebrated 
in  history,  were  dictated  by  his  own  high  human  feelings ;  and 
no  heretic-cursing  Pope,  no  ambitious  sophistical  Archbishop,  has 
claim  to  a  tittle  of  his  noble  deed.  The  illustrious  founder  of 
Maryland  belongs  not  to  their  side,  but  to  the  opposite  one  of 
humanity  and  freedom  ;  and  to  him  their  eulogy  is  no  honor. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

SUPPER-TABLE    AT   THE    "HALF-MOON"   IN    EISENACH — ANNADALE — GEIMM's    TALES 
MIGRATION   WESTWARD. 

IN  the  evening  the  company  at  the  supper-table  of  the  "  Half- 
Moon,"  in  Eisenach,  was  enlivened  by  the  news,  just  arrived 
from  Cassel,  of  the  flight  of  the  Duke.  It  was  the  opening  act 
of  the  Hesse-Cassel  political  melodrama,  which  afterwards  ended 
unmelodramatically  with  the  triumph  of  the  guilty  and  the  fall 
of  the  innocent.  Except  that  the  end  is  not  yet,  and  will  only 
be  after  that  the  whirlwind, — which  ere  long  will  envelop  all 
Germany  in  gloom  and  terror, — shall  have  passed  over,  and  from 
the  bosom  of  the  enfranchised  people  shall  have  arisen  a  higher 
justice  than  has  ever  yet  presided  over  German  affairs. 

As  I  have  generally  found  this  summer  at  German  Inns, — 
except  those  of  fashionable  watering-places, — the  majority  of  the 
little  circle  at  the  "  Half- Moon"  was  democratic.  The  discussion 
of  the  doings  in  Cassel  was  conducted  with  vivacity,  but  with 
good  temper.  One  of  the  speakers  was  the  head-waiter,  who, 
without  either  forwardness  or  timidity,  took  part  in  the  conver- 
sation, and  expressed  moderate  opinions  in  good  language,  per- 
forming at  the  same  time  his  duties  round  the  table  with  watch- 
fulness and  alacrity.  The  spirit  of  the  great  Wartburg  pris- 
oner, that  animates  so  many  millions  all  over  the  globe,  had 
made  a  man  of  this  humble  servant. 

The  traveller  through  Eisenach  should  take  two  or  three  hours, 


TRADITIONS.  89 

— whether  he  has  them  to  spare  or  not, — to  visit  Annadale. 
After  a  drive  of  two  miles  through  a  beautiful  valley,  you  enter 
on  foot  a  narrow  winding  gorge,  whose  rocky  sides  are  embow- 
ered by  overhanging  trees,  under  which  you  walk  on  a  gravel 
path  not  wide  enough  for  two  abreast.  But  what  constitutes  the 
peculiar  beauty  of  the  place,  and  marks  it  as  a  unique  natural 
curiosity,  is  the  fine  moss  on  the  rocks,  covering  them  as  com- 
pletely and  as  smoothly  as  if  silk  velvet  had  been  carefully  fitted 
on  them  by  feminine  fingers,  and  kept  of  the  most  vivid  green  by 
the  shade  of  the  forest  and  the  moisture  from  springs. 

It  is  a  place  to  tell  fairy  tales  in.  With  such  poetry  before  the 
senses,  the  mind  grows  fantastic.  So  much  beauty  should  not 
be  wasted  on  solitude  ;  it  solicits  you  to  people  it.  One  can 
readily  conceive  how  an  imaginative  race  like  the  Germans 
should,  in  their  robust  youth,  have  populated  the  dells  of  their 
virgin  forests  with  fays  and  fairies.  These  attended  the  Saxons 
to  England,  where  Shakspeare  by  adopting,  after  educating  them, 
has  given  them  an  everlasting  home. 

Of  the  safety  wherewith  traditions  travel  down  through  many 
generations,  with  no  other  vehicle  than  the  tongues  of  nurses 
and  grandmothers,  I  had,  while  a  student  at  Gottingen,  a  remark- 
able exemplification.  One  of  the  Grimms  had  just  published  a 
collection  of  children's  stories  all  gathered  by  himself  from  the 
mouths  of  aged  women, — chiefly  in  the  Hartz  Mountains-  In 
looking  through  them  I  came  upon  one  that  was  in  its  minute 
and  absurd  particulars  precisely  the  same  tale  that  I  had  heard 
as  a  child  in  America.  A  thousand  years  ago  it  had  gone  over 
to  England,  had  there  lived  from  mouth  to  mouth  through  thirty 
generations,  had  then  traversed  the  Atlantic  and  dwelt  for  two 
hundred  years  near  the  shores  of  the  Chesapeake,  and  now, 
brought  thence  packed  away  in  the  memory  of  an  American,  back 
to  its  starting-place,  was  found,  after  having  changed  its  vesture 
from  Gothic  to  Anglo-Saxon,  and  from  Anglo-Saxon  to  English, 


90  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

to  match  as  accurately  a  tale  now  for  the  first  time  printed,  as 
one  proof-sheet  does  another  taken  from  the  same  form  of  types. 
In  rude  Gothic  the  two  had  parted  more  than  ten  centuries  ago, 
and  now  met,  the  one  in  German,  the  other  in  English,  and  in 
the  many  vicissitudes  of  that  long  separation,  neither  had  changed 
a  feature. 

It  were  curious  to  seek  the  origin  of  these  tales  in  the  East. 
The  affinities  of  language  and  similarities  in  many  words  point  to 
the  neighborhood  of  the  Caspian  Sea  as  the  cradle  of  the  German 
tribes.  To  some  of  the  many  inquisitive  travellers,  who  are  eager 
for  new  fields  of  exploration,  here  is  a  captivating  enterprise,  to 
penetrate  to  that  region  and  bring  away  the  popular  and  nursery 
tales  as  philological  and  ethnographical  treasures. 

Tradition  and  researches  do  not  entirely  concur  with  the  Mo- 
saic record  in  placing  the  origin  of  man  in  the  East.  Yet  it 
were  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  man  first  appeared  in  the 
highlands  of  Asia  because  there  the  Earth  was  first  humanly 
habitable.  From  what  is  now  observed  and  known,  we  are  au- 
thorized to  infer,  that  the  whole  surface  of  the  Earth  was  not  at 
once  put  in  condition  to  be  the  abode  of  man.  Asia  may  have 
been  first  ready,  and  America  or  Australia  last,  perhaps  thou- 
sands of  years  later. 

Facts  justify  the  line  of  Bishop  Berkeley  that 

Westward  the  march  of  Empire  takes  its  course, 

shifting  its  seat  as  the  streams  of  population, — of  white  popula- 
tion,— pouring  down  from  the  centre  of  Asia  towards  its  western 
confines  and  Europe,  grew  stronger  and  clearer  the  further  they 
advanced.  From  Asia  the  march  of  Empire  was  to  Greece,  and 
thence  to  Italy,  and  from  Italy  still  further  westward  to  Spain, 
France,  England.  Driving  ever  westward,  population  followed 
Columbus  across  the  stormy  Atlantic,  and  founded  on  its  Ameri- 
can shore  an  Empire  that  will  as  much  exceed  England  in  power 


MIGRATION  GOES   WITH  THE  SUN.  91 

as  England  does  Rome  in  Rome's  proudest  day,  and  as  Rome 
herself  did  the  Assyrian  monarchy  in  its  broadest  magnificence. 
But  America  had  already  been  peopled.  This  population,  com- 
ing out  of  Asia  eastward,  was  met  and  driven  back  again  towards 
Asia  by  that  which  came  out  of  Asia  through  Europe  westward, 
and  is  destined  to  be  extinguished  by  the  latter. 

That  it  is  a  law  of  Nature  that  migration  should  "go  with  the 
sun,"  we  have  startling  proof  in  this  fact,  that  the  aboriginal  in- 
habitants of  America,  who  in  peopling  that  Continent  had  violated 
this  law,  are  thus  thrust  back  by  those  who  obeyed  it.  This,  it 
may  be  said,  is  only  the  superior  white  subjecting  the  inferior 
brown  race.  In  India  too  the  white  man  has  subjected  the  brown, 
but  he  has  not  overflowed  his  territory  and  displaced  him.  The 
British  and  Dutch  Indies  are  held  by  a  handful  of  whites  through 
military  possession.  So  the  English,  who  have  set  an  armed  foot 
in  China,  may  subdue  it  as  they  have  subdued  Hindostan.  But 
the  peopling  of  the  eastern  shore  of  Asia  with  swarms  from  the 
great  white  hive,  is  to  take  place  by  migration  westward,  that  is, 
from  Oregon  and  California. 

The  strong,  the  white  race,  streamed  westward  ;  the  western 
Asiatics  are  to  this  day  white.  Those  who  from  the  region  which 
according  to  Oriental  tradition  is  given  as  the  starting-place  of 
mankind  went  eastward,  the  Chinese,  the  Siamese,  the  Japanese, 
belong  to  the  inferior  brown  and  yellow  races.  It  may  be  object- 
ed that  all  having  originated  from  one  stock,  the  difference  of 
color  was  caused  by  climate,  food,  water  and  other  external  influ- 
ences. The  force  of  these  influences  is  undeniable;  but  ad- 
mitting, what  is  by  no  means  demonstrated,  that  the  parents  of  the 
whole  human  family  were  a  single  couple,  their  color  must  re- 
main a  mystery  ;  and  therefore  we  cannot  know  whether  climate 
re-changed  brown  to  white  in  Western  Asia  and  Europe,  or  white 
to  brown  and  black  in  Eastern  Asia  and  Africa.* 

*  A  recent  French  writer,  M.  Henri  Lecouturier,  in  a  remarkable  woi'k, 


92  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

Color,  in  races,  is  not  a  mere  outward  cutaneous  painting  by 
the  sun,  but  comes  from  within,  from  the  blood.  That  long  action 
of  the  sun  with  other  outward  agencies  will  change  the  quality 
of  the  blood,  may  be  believed.  But  a  strong  race  may  carry 
within  itself  the  vigor  to  resist  and  even  to  reverse  the  effect  of 
these  agencies.  In  figure  the  Anglo-Saxons  in  America  have  as- 

entitled  Cosmosophie  ou  le  Socialism  Universel,  endeavors  by  an  ingenious 
exposition  to  prove,  that  the  birth-place  of  man  was  in  the  Polar  region. 
According  to  his  deduction  the  first  man  was  black  and  covered  with  hair, 
and  like  certain  tribes  still  found  in  Africa,  was  nearer  to  the  Ourang  Ou- 
tang  than  to  the  white  man.  Towards  the  Poles,  it  was  that  the  Earth  first 
became  cool  enough  to  be  habitable ;  and  when  man  first  appeared,  the 
climate  there  was  as  warm  as  it  now  is  under  the  Equator,  while  that  of  the 
temperate  and  torrid  zones  was  so  hot  as  to  be  uninhabitable.  With  the 
receding  of  the  Ecliptic, — which  at  first  extended  over  the  whole  ninety 
degrees, — and  the  corresponding  receding  of  the  focal  fires  within  the 
Earth,  the  cooling  of  the  surface,  which  began  at  the  Poles,  extended 
gradually  to  the  temperate  zone.  At  the  same  time  the  polar  region  grew 
cooler  and  cooler,  and  the  first  men.  adapted  to  the  greater  warmth,  followed 
it  and  gradually  approached  the  equator,  in  the  heats  of  which  their  de- 
scendants are  now  found  in  Africa. 

His  hypothesis  is,  that  the  first  man  was  preceded  by  the  monkey,  who 
went  before  him  also  in  migrating  towards  the  equatorial  region,  where  he 
is  still  found.  As  the  monkey  left  man  behind  him,  so  the  first  race  of 
black  hairy  men  left  superior  men  their  descendants  behind  themselves, 
the  race  improving  in  color  and  quality  with  the  cooling  of  the  Earth  and 
the  purification  of  its  zones,  until,  after  many  ages  of  successive  migrations, 
the  inferior  breeds  following  the  heat  and  the  superior  taking  their  place, 
the  whole  Earth  was  peopled,  and  the  highest  types  were  found  in  the 
temperate  zone  and  the  lowest  in  the  torrid. 

The  genealogy  of  man,  says  M.  Lecouturier,  may  be  learnt  by  beginning 
with  the  present  occupants  at  the  tropical  regions  and  going  northward. 
The  most  advanced  will  be  found  in  the  temperate  zone,  and  the  most  back- 
ward, that  is,  the  primitive  and  oldest  races,  in  the  torrid.  For  a  general 
classification  he  divides  the  human  family  into  three  races,  the  lowest,  the 
middle,  and  the  highest;  the  Ethiopian,  the  Mongolian  and  the  Caucasian; 
each  embracing  several  varieties. 

The  Finns,  Laplanders  and  Esquimaux,  a  stunted  and  misshapen  race 
living  on  the  borders  of  the  Arctic  circle,  are  remains  of  the  primitive  races, 
who  refused  to  follow  the  current  that  drew  them  towards  the  warm  lati- 
tudes. Philological  researches  have  shown  such  an  affinity  between  the 
Finns  and  the  Hungarians,  that  Berghaus  puts  them  down  on  his  Ethno- 


THE  PATH  OF  PROGRESS 

similated  somewhat  to  the  North  American  Indians-;  but  who 
would  thence  conclude,  that  they  are  to  grow  downward  to  them  ? 
On  two  races  so  wide  apart  as  these,  the  one  having  an  organiza- 
tion so  superior  to  that  of  the  other,  is  it  not  reasonable  to  pre- 
sume, that  external  influences,  telluric  and  solar,  magnetic  and 
material,  might  act  with  opposite  effects,  weakening  the  weaker 
race  and  strengthening  the  stronger ;  and  that  thus,  while  the 
Europeans  in  North  America,  under  the  above  influences,  should 
come  to  resemble  in  some  minor  characteristics  the  natives,  the 
gulf  between  them  would  in  the  main  be  widened,  and  the  original 
organic  superiority  of  the  white  race  be  not  only  maintained  but 
augmented  ? 

This  proclivity  of  man,  or  rather  of  the  white  race,  westward, — 
exhibited  in  subordinate  movements  as  well  as  in  the  great  cardi- 
nal migrations, — would-  seem  to  proceed  from  an  instinct  that 
harmonizes  men  unconsciously  with  the  order  of  Nature.  West- 
ward is  the  path  forward,  the  path  of  progress.  Conservatism 
looks  backward,  that  is,  eastward.  Thus  at  this  moment,  princes 
in  Germany  look  with  hope  to  Russia,  in  Spain  to  Rome ;  the 
People,  with  a  deeper  intuition,  to  America,  and  themselves.  On 
the  other  hand,  Russia  dreams  of  another  Scythian  invasion,  and 
Rome  is  straining  to  get  command  of  the  advanced  guard  of  hu- 
manity in  America, — which  she  will  do  when  printing  shall  be 
there  prohibited  as  the  abettor  of  crime,  and  steam  suppressed  as 
a  disturber  of  the  public  peace,  and  the  reasoning  faculty  pro- 
scribed as  an  obstacle  to  virtue, — a  prohibition,  suppression,  and 
proscription  practised  in  the  papal  dominions,  and  which  the  pa- 
ternal chiefs  of  the  Roman  Church  are  making  a  last  agonizing 

graphical  maps  as  belonging  to  the  same  tribe,  thus  confirming  the  opinion 
of  M.  Lecouturier,  who  says,  the  handsome  valorous  Maygars  are  directly 
descended  from  the  poor  emaciated  dwarfs  of  the  polar  regions. 

This  curious  theory  of  the  peopling  of  the  Earth  is  not  in  contradiction 
with  the  westward  migrations,  which  only  commenced  with  the  white  race, 
that  is,  after  that  all  the  zones  of  the  earth  were  peopled. 


94  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

effort  to  perpetuate  by  means  of  the  dungeon,  the  hangman,  and 
Louis  Bonaparte.  In  the  great  capitals,  London,  Paris,  Berlin, 
New  York,  the  west  is  the  chosen  quarter.  Is  this  accidental,  or 
is  it  not  an  undesigned,  instinctive  conformity  to  the  saying, 
"  The  devil  take  the  hindmost  ?"  a  saying,  the  significance  and 
sad  truth  of  which,  few  people  suspect. 

But  it  is  time  for  us  to  obey  the  westward  law,  and  move  to- 
wards the  Rhine. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

OIESSEN — LIEBIG MAKIKNBERG PRIK8NITZ — THE  EHINK. 

ON  the  way  back  to  Frankfort,  we  stopped  for  the  night  at 
Giessen.  It  would  have  been  a  satisfaction  to  have  availed  my- 
self of  the  genial  accessibility  of  German  professors,  to  visit 
Liebig,  one  of  the  stoutest  living  scientific  pioneers, — one  of  the 
precocious  band  that  with  the  sharp  edge  of  thought  are  hewing 
for  their  fellow-men  paths  into  untrodden  domains, — one  of  that 
bold  brotherhood  of  discoverers  who,  in  the  holy  privacy  of  the 
laboratory  and  the  closet,  reveal  new  truths  by  light  struck  from 
the  contact  of  genius  with  Nature.  But  we  arrived  late  and  tired. 
I  did  not  see  a  famous  captain  in  the  great  army  of  progress,  but 
at  the  public  table  of  the  inn  I  saw  a  private  working  in  the  cause 
of  conservatism,  with  a  zeal  and  capacity  that  made  me  wonder. 
This  was  a  supper-eater,  who  in  order  to  conserve  his  body  and 
soul  tightly  together  during  the  night,  transmitted  through  the 
portal  of  the  human  temple,  his  mouth,  into  the  mysterious  labora- 
tory of  life,  the  following  articles  of  food,  each  in  unstinted  por- 
tions, and  in  the  order  here  named : — 1st  course — fried  potatoes, 
sausages,  sourcrout,  cold  tongue ;  2d  course — stewed  pigeon, 
pudding,  roast  pig,  cheese  with  bread  and  butter.  For  a  man 
with  a  weak  digestion,  it  was  dangerous,  just  before  bed-time,  to 
"  assist,"  as  the  French  say,  at  the  piling  up  into  one  stomach  of 
this  huge  heterogeneous  bulk ;  for  the  bare  image  of  it  on  his 
sleeping  brain  might  be  enough  to  cause  nightmare. 


96  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN   EUROPE. 

No  matter  how  often  you  may  have  seen  the  Rhine,  to 

come  upon  it  is  always  an  event.  The  renowned  river  is  a  line 
of  beauty  traced  on  the  globe  by  Nature,  and  embellished  by  man. 
On  its  shores  I  have  dwelt  so  much,  so  pleasantly,  and  so  profita- 
bly, that  whenever  I  return  to  them  they  give  me  the  glad  greet- 
ing of  a  home. 

To  go  back  to  old  haunts  is  a  reduplication  of  life.  With  the 
skipping  actualities  of  the  fretful  present  mingle  the  silent  memo- 
ries of  the  past,  like  marble  statues  looking  upon  a  market-place. 
As  we  came  down  the  Rhine,  we  bade  the  docile  boat  turn  in 
again  to  the  pier  of  venerable  Boppart,  that  during  the  latter  days 
of  September  we  might  tarry  within  the  walls  of  the  solid,  fa- 
miliar, roomy,  old  convent  of  Marienberg.  A  return  to  its  gardens, 
its  corridors,  its  terraces,  we  enjoyed  the  more,  because  we  were 
not  now,  as  in  years  past,  to  work  hard  for  bodily  salvation  with 
aid  of  its  healing  waters. 

What  perverse  children  of  Nature  we  are.  She  gives^us 
health,  we  quickly  set  about  to  turn  her  gift  into  disease ;  she 
promises  abundance,  we  choose  to  stay  poor  ;  she  offers  us  pala- 
ces, we  burrow  in  hovels.  In  all  things  we  are  unnatural ;  in 
eating,  in  drinking,  in  our  outgoings  and  incomings,  in  our  labors 
and  our  pleasures,  in  politics,  in  religion,  in  medicine.  Under 
the  spell  of  a  cajoling  conceit,  we  build  up  codes  that  are  false, 
and  then  maintain  them  by  sophistry  and  force.  Most  of  our  life 
is  a  kicking  against  the  pricks.  For  our  weal  we  should  be  al- 
ways naturalists.  Nature  contains,  is  the  law.  Whether  his 
work  be  rare  or  daily,  high  or  low,  Nature  is  every  man's  mis- 
tress, and  teacher,  and  helper.  From  the  ploughman  to  the  poet, 
the  task  is  well  done  in  proportion  as  she  mixes  in  the  doing. 
Wherein  lies  the  excellence  of  Shakspeare,  of  Goethe,  of  Burns, 
of  Wordsworth,  of  Moliere,  as  well  as  of  Galileo  and  Newton, 
as  well  as  of  Fulton  and  Priesnitz  ?  In  their  greater  fidelity  to 
Nature.  They  are  deeper  and  broader  naturalists. 


THE  WATER-CURE.  97 

The  discovery  of  the  power  there  is  in  water  as  a  curative 
agent,  was  made  by  Priesnitz  twenty-five  years  ago.  Since  that, 
the  methods  of  its  application  have  been  scientifically  improved 
and  multiplied.  Trials  in  acute  diseases,  and  in  all  curable 
chronic  ones,  a  thousand  times  repeated,  have  proved  its  efficacy. 
And  yet  this  truth,  so  large  and  simple  and  fruitful,  this  balm- 
laden  truth,  is  accepted  by  but  a  fraction  of  reading,  reasoning 
white  men.  Custom,  prejudice,  interest,  routine,  timidity,  con- 
spire to  retard  its  acknowledgment.  The  poisoning  pill-box  and 
life-draining  lancet,  keep  on  decimating  and  maiming  the  race. 
"  Business  before  truth,"  is  one  of  the  mottoes  of  civilization,  and  so 
the  blood-and-drug  doctors  continue  in  trade,  and  out  of  nature. 

But  let  us  seek  comfort  in  retrospection.  A  hundred  years 
ago  the  discovery  of  Priesnitz,  like  other  discoveries  that  too 
far  outrun  their  age,  had  probably  died  in  its  cradle.  Men  do 
reason  more  than  they  used  to  ;  knowledge  does  circulate  more 
briskly  and  widely  ;  truth  has  some  service  of  the  electric  tele- 
graph. 

The  choice  spots  of  the  globe  for  lounging,  the  one  in 

winter  and  spring,  the  other  in  summer  and  early  autumn,  are 
the  Boulevards  of  Paris  and  the  Rhine  ;  the  one  the  work  of  man 
assisted  by  nature,  the  other  the  work  of  nature  enriched  by 
man  ;  for  a  fog  or  a  rain  disenchants  the  Boulevards,  and  with- 
out its  towns  and  villages  and  castles  and  man-movement  on 
flood  and  shore,  the  Rhine  were  not  the  Rhine.  In  midsummer 
the  valleys  that  run  back  draw  you  into  their  shades  ;  later,  you 
quit  the  stream  for  the  heights  ;  but  always  the  zest  of  the  walk 
is  when  you  issue  out  again  upon  the  river,  and  to  saunter  along 
its  margin  is  what  one  does  oftenest.  If  you  are  alone,  you  have 
company  in  the  peasantry  tilling  or  gathering  in  the  precious 
narrow  slopes  between  the  water  and  the  precipice,  in  the  way- 
farers on  the  smooth  road,  in  the  white-shining  villages  on  either 
shore,  in  the  old  castles  that  solemnly  address  you  from  rock- 

5 


98  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

founded  eminences  like  spectres  half-protruded  from  their  tombs, 
in  the  freight-craft  and  the  persevering  horses  that  drag  them 
against  the  swift  current,  in  the  steam-driven  boats  that  queen  it 
over  the  river  they  have  conquered,  and  in  the  old  river  him- 
self, a  companion  of  infinite  resources,  of  unfading  freshness. 
Should  you  wish  to  rest,  and  from  prudence  prefer  an  indoor 
seat  to  one  on  a  pile  of  macadamized  stones,  you  enter  the  quiet 
inn  of  a  village  and  call,  not  for  a  half-bottle  of  wine,  but  for  a 
"  spezialen."  A  "  spezialen"  is  a  small  tumbler-full,  and  costs 
a  groschen,  about  two  and  a  half  cents.  This,  for  the  privilege 
of  resting,  an  hour  if  you  choose,  even  should  the  chair-bottom 
be  of  walnut,  is  cheap, — provided  you  don't  drink  the  wine.  If 
you  are  thirsty,  drink  grapes,  and  I  know  not  a  more  epicurean 
contrivance  than  to  walk  yourself  into  a  summer  thirst  of  a  Sep- 
tember afternoon  on  the  Rhine,  and  then  at  sunset  to  be  turned 
into  a  vineyard  to  slake  it  with  purple  bunches  fast  plucked 
with  your  own  hand  from  the  stalk. 

The  Rhine  !  The  Rhine !  so  sweet  he  smells 

When  buds  the  perfumed  grape  in  June. 
Still  dearer  is  his  shade  when  swells 

The  rippling  breeze  at  summer's  noon. 
But  dearest  when  young  Autumn's  Sun 

Wipes  the  late  dew  from  purpled  vine, 
And  pours  his  ripening  heats  upon 

The  spicy  juice  of  pendant  wine. 


CHAPTER   XV. 

COLOGNE — DUSSELDORF — ARTISTS — LEUTZE's   WASHINGTON — FREILIGRATH. 

RAILROADS  and  Commerce  have  put  new  life  under  the  dying 
ribs  of  Cologne.  The  lazy,  dirty  old  town,  that  fifty  years  ago 
offended  the  nostrils  of  Coleridge  to  the  point  of  versification,  has 
grown  busy,  and  thence  more  cleanly.  Whoever  has  the  aes- 
thetic sense  would  be  robbed  of  a  rightful  enjoyment,  if  in  passing 
through  Cologne  even  for  the  twentieth  time  he  were  not  allowed 
to  stop,  just  to  breathe  for  a  few  moments  under  the  shadow  of 
the  Cathedral,  the  atmosphere  of  sublimity  wherein  that  mighty 
torso  of  architectural  art  isolates  itself.  This  is  one  of  those 
great  objects  that  so  swell  the  mind  with  high  emotion  that  pos- 
session eclipses  hope.  In  this  presence  we  are  satisfied ;  our 
contentment  with  the  hour  is  brimming  ;  we  are  not  driven  for- 
ward or  backward  into  time  to  fill  the  void  we  carry  about  in  us. 
For  mostly,  the  now  is  so  flat  and  sour,  that,  horsed  on  the  winged 
steeds  of  memory  or  of  imagination,  we  fly  to  the  far  past  or 
further  future,  to  seek  the  pleasure  we  find  not  in  the  dull  world 
we  have  built,  and  built  with  splendid  materials,  like  senseless 
architects,  who  erecting  a  Palace  should  hide  their  marble  and 
Mosaics  in  the  foundation,  and  show  above-ground  only  burnt  clay 
and  painted  pine. 

The  pleasures  of  memory  and  imagination  are  satires  on  pres^ 
ent  life,  which  is  so  poor,  that  we  are  forever  running  away  from 
it,  and  betaking  ourselves  to  the  deceased  past  and  the  unborn 


100  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

future.  In  childhood  we  sigh  for  the  stature  and  exemptions  of 
youth  ;  in  youth  we  count  the  years  and  months  that  bar  us  from 
the  liberties  of  manhood  ;  in  manhood  we  strain  forward  towards 
age  on  the  untiring  hack,  Ambition  ;  in  maturity  we  strive  to 
comfort  ourselves  with  reminiscences  of  youth  and  childhood,  that 
come  back  upon  us  like  chiding  cherubs.  We  are  always  hur- 
rying out  of  to-day  to  get  into  to-morrow.  We  would  subordinate 
this  world  to  the  next,  and  we  employ  at  great  cost  a  numerous 
class  to  teach  us  to  give  precedence  to  the  world  to  come.  We 
drink,  and  smoke,  and  read  novels,  to  stave  off  the  pressing  hour. 
We  thus  make  time  our  enemy  instead  of  our  ally — time,  the 
flapping  of  whose  wings  are  the  pulses  of  universal  life,  whose 
hours  are  the  foot-prints  of  forward-marching  Eternity,  and  mark 
the  unresting  labors  of  the  all-sustaining  God  ;  labors,  which  it  is 
our  transcendent  privilege  to  share,  so  prodigally,  so  divinely  are 
we  endowed. 

Dusseldorf  is  an  hour  by  railroad  below  Cologne,  a  neat, 

shady  town,  noted  for  its  school  of  Art.  A  small  city  such  as 
Diisseldorf,  which  becomes  the  seat  of  artists,  pictures  itself  to 
you  like  one  of  those  fine  engraved  heads  of  Poets  encircled  with 
a  laurel  garland.  It  stands  in  your  mind  crowned  with  the  sym- 
bol of  poetic  triumph.  The  art-element,  is  not  here,  as  in  large 
capitals,  an  ingredient  commingled  and  diluted  with  other  supe- 
riorities ;  it  reigns  in  sole  sovereignty,  a  sovereignty  as  benignant 
as  that  of  light  over  darkness.  Here  are  assembled  a  hundred 
men  who  have  dedicated  themselves  to  Beauty.  To  incarnate 
the  spirit  that  pervades  the  two  worlds,  the  world  opened  to  ocu- 
lar sense  and  that  revealed  to  the  eye  of  the  mind,  this  is  their 
life's  thought,  aim,  desire,  act.  Through  Nature  and  History, 
through  all  lands  and  activities,  through  the  densities  of  the  real, 
and  the  sunny  pomps  of  the  ideal,  wherever  thought  or  sense  can 
stretch,  they  range  in  chase  of  Beauty,  who  flies  from  them  as 
the  maiden  from  the  wooer  whose  love  she  would  quicken  by  her 


WORK-ROOMS  OF  ARTISTS.  101 

coyness.  Wherever  a  high  deed  has  been  done,  wherever  men 
have  sacrificed  themselves  for  mankind,  wherever  the  higher  law 
has  gained  a  victory,  wherever  through  the  impulses  of  generous 
natures  poetry  has  become  act,  wherever  the  countenance  of  His- 
tory is  agitated  by  great  changes,  there  the  artists  gather.  From 
the  flowers  of  being  they  suck  food  for  the  nurture  of  their  souls, 
that  they  may  fulfil  their  high  function,  which  is,  to  second  God 
in  keeping  the  world  replenished  with  beauty. 

The  work-rooms  of  artists  are  among  the  pleasant  places  of  the 
earth ;  they  are  green  spots  in  our  desert  of  prosaic  life.  In 
them  you  get  the  repose  of  disinterested  sensations.  You  are 
drawn  out  of  your  little  self  into  your  large  self.  You  are,  more- 
over, as  guest,  in  the  happiest  position  towards  the  host ;  you  par- 
take of  a  double,  nay,  a  threefold  hospitality  ;  for  the  man  wel- 
comes you,  and  the  artist  entertains  you,  and  the  picture  greets 
you,  it  may  be  with  a  peal  of  celestial  clarions.  Between  the 
artist  and  his  creation  is  a  privileged  standpoint ;  through  you  he 
sends  his  thought  to  his  work,  which  on  its  part  beams  with  its 
fullest  light  in  its  master's  presence.  You  stand  as  when  gazing 
at  a  dewy  landscape,  and  behind  you  the  rising  sun  that  has  just 
brought  it  out  of  darkness. 

After  the  day's  work,  the  painters  at  Diisseldorf  assemble 
towards  evening  in  a  garden  on  the  edge  of  the  town.  The  re- 
laxation of  fencing,  and  archery,  and  tenpins,  in  the  open  air,  is 
something ;  but  that  each  one  will  meet  a  score  or  two  of  his  fel- 
lows, this  is  the  spur  that,  pricking  each  one,  drives  scores  to  the 
daily  gathering.  Men  are  so  sociable,  so  human ;  without  the 
rays  from  one  another's  faces  they  could  not  keep  warm.  Here 
in  their  club  the  artists  chat,  and  drink  the  drink  made  of  hops, 
which  even  on  the  Rhine  is  more  relished  than  that  from  the 
grape,  and  smoke,  and  play  at  games. 

"  Manly  games,"  is  a  phrase  of  universal  acceptation.  I  deny 
its  fitness,  and  affirm,  that  when  men  shall  be  more  manly  they 


102  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

will  have  no  games.  They  will  then  have  put  away  childish 
things.  Montaigne  says  that  "  sport  is  the  work  of  children." 
Fourier  says,  that  for  young  and  old,  work  may  become  sport. 
One  of  the  easy  miracles  of  scientific  socialism  will  be  to  make 
men  rejoice  in  labor,  and  drawing  even  children  from  play,  lead 
them  to  seek  work  as  the  best  of  sports.  This  miracle  few  people 
will  believe  till  they  see  it.  The  world  is  much  more  ready  to 
accept  past  miracles  than  future. 

But  Montaigne  is  here  as  shrewd  as  ever  in  his  observation. 
Children  play  with  a  worklike  spirit,  and  indeed  with  them  play  is 
creative,  aiding  the  growth  of  body  and  mind.  For  adults,  games 
are  utterly  barren,  and  men  with  bats  and  cues  and  cards  in  their 
hands  become  children  without  the  saving  unconsciousness  of 
childhood.  A  company  of  Englishmen  on  a  lawn,  spending  their 
breath  upon  cricket,  is  no  whit  more  respectable  than  a  knot  of 
Germans  or  Frenchmen  in  an  estaminet,  intent  round  a  marble 
table  upon  a  bout  of  dominoes.  Both  are  excusable  to  that  broad, 
unpriestly  charity,  that  covers  with  the  sweep  of  its  unpaid  abso- 
lution all  delinquencies.  You  forgive  them  as  you  forgive  the 
theft  of  a  meal  by  a  pauper.  Under  the  goad  of  moral  hunger 
they  steal  from  Time  and  Labor,  the  trustful  stewards  of  Nature 
and  Art,  the  guardians  and  treasurers  of  humanity,  twin  partners 
of  the  Divine  Architect  and  eternal  prime  Motor. 

To  its  school  Diisseldorf  attracts  some  foreign  artists,  among 
them  our  countrymen,  who  get  quickly  on  the  scent  of  a  good 
thing.  A  distinguished  German  painter  told  me,  that  of  a  num- 
ber of  young  American  painters  whom  he  had  known,  not  one 
was  without  talent,  but  that  they  did  not  study  with  due  thorough- 
ness. Structures  of  art  to  be  good  and  durable,  have  as  much 
need  as  cotton-factories  of  solid  foundations.  Genius  can  no 
more  dispense  with  labor,  than  the  eagle  can  with  growth  ;  the 
growth  of  genius  is  only  through  methodical  application.  The 
strokes  of  scientific  work  are  the  pulsations  that  carry  nutriment 


WASHINGTON.  103 

to  the  genial  germ,  and  make  it  accrescent.  But  genius  discovers 
its  own  science,  and  finds  often  slow  furtherance  on  the  beaten 
roads  of  routine.  American  artists,  with  more  boldness  and  free- 
dom, carry  to  European  academies  a  national  impatience  of  de- 
lays, which  may  make  some  overleap  the  earlier  indispensable 
gradations.  But  these  are  not  the  most  gifted,  for  natural  gifts 
feed  themselves  with  the  best  food  within  their  reach,  as  infalli- 
ble in  their  selection  as  the  roots  of  prosperous  oaks.  So  far 
from  being  too  self-reliant,  genius  has  a  quick  faculty  of  absorb- 
ing and  assimilating  to  itself  the  fruits  of  others'  thoughts  and 
practices.  Plodding  talent  lags  behind  the  pioneers  and  dis- 
coverers, nimble  genius  never.  It  fuses  in  its  focal  fire  all  things 
about  it,  so  that,  whether  for  beauty  or  for  strength,  they  flow  into 
the  moulds  it  is  fashioning. 

In  the  studio  of  an  American  artist  of  high  reputation  in  Ger- 
many as  well  as  in  America,  I  had  one  of  those  pleasant  sur- 
prises that  quicken  the  pulse  more  healthfully  than  a  draft  of  old 
wine.  On  entering  Leutze's  spacious  studio  I  came  unexpectedly 
upon  his  fine  picture  of  Washington  crossing  the  Delaware.  I 
had  not  heard  that  he  was  at  work  on  such  a  picture.  My  heart 
was  suddenly  flooded  with  a  sublime  home-feeling.  In  Washing- 
ton's majestic  figure,  the  distant  home,  which  he  had  done  so  much 
to  build  for  me,  became  instantly  present  in  a  foreign  land. 
What  a  bequest  to  his  countrymen  is  this  man's  character.  The 
great  things  he  did  are  almost  less  than  what  he  does.  The  image 
of  him  that  grows  into  the  mind  of  every  young  American,  is  a 
defence  of  his  country  as  strong  and  steadfast  now,  a  half-century 
since  he  died,  as  was  in  life  his  generalship  and  civil  wisdom. 
His  perpetual  great  presence  is  a  national  moral  fortification. 

Another  artist  who  has  not  wrought  with  the  pencil  but  with 
a  deeper  instrument,  was  this  summer  living  at  Diisseldorf,  the 
Poet  Freiligrath,  who  having  dedicated  his  genius  to  the  cause 
of  German  emancipation,  had  made  himself  a  mark  for  the  hate 
and  persecution  of  a  retrograde  government. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

CLEANLINESS — BELGIAN   PBOSPER ITY — STATISTICS. 

PERFECT  cleanliness  were  general  perfection.  A  man  whose 
body  should  be  absolutely  clean,  always,  without  soil  outwardly 
or  inwardly,  were  a  model  man,  a  breathing  ideal,  what  is  often 
named  but  never  seen — a  perfect  gentleman.  Body  and  soul  are 
so  closely  married,  and  so  content  with  the  bond,  that  strongest 
spiritualists  and  materialists,  countertugging  for  centuries  with 
combined  might  to  sunder  them,  have  not  started  a  joint,  but  their 
interdependence  and  reciprocal  benefactions  continue  unweakened, 
visible  in  all  the  myriad  phenomena  of  life,  their  marriage  being 
as  indissoluble  as  that  between  man  and  woman,  the  which,  under 
varying  conditions,  must  ever  be,  growing  freer  and  purer  as  we 
near  the  Utopia  of  perfect  cleanliness. 

But  mutual  dependence  kills  not  freedom ;  nay,  freedom  is  a 
product  of  mutual  dependence.  Thence,  the  body  may  be  cleaner 
than  the  mind,  and  the  reverse.  The  co-operation  is  not  inflexi- 
bly uniform.  I  doubt  whether  the  five  thousand  best  scholars 
of  Germany  are  bodily  so  clean,  as  the  five  thousand  busiest  bag- 
men of  England.  For  every  result  there  is  always  more  than 
one  cause.  In  the  main,  however,  mental  cleanliness  precedes 
corporeal,  here  as  elsewhere  the  moral  element  acting  the  mascu- 
line part,  and  taking  the  initiative. 

The  more  animal  men  are,  the  less  have  they  of  personal  clean- 
liness. Savages  are  dirtier  than  barbarians,  whose  habits  again 


DEGREES  OF  CLEANLINESS.  105 

are  not  acceptable  to  educated  civilizees.  Ritual  ablutions,  like 
those  of  Mahometans,  are  not  a  full  substitute  for  the  washings 
that  are  consequent  on  culture.  Communities  or  nations  that  are 
stagnant,  are  dirty.  Movement  purifies  men  as  well  as  air.  So 
soon  as  a  man  rises  from  lowness,  and  becomes  progressive,  he 
grows  sweeter.  The  same  with  a  people.  Speaking  of  the  prac- 
tices of  the  Bretons  in  France,  noted  for  their  primitive  igno- 
rance, some  one  reported  of  them  that  they  bring  their  pigs  into 
their  houses  at  night ;  "  Oh  !  the  dirty  pigs,"  said  Victor  Hugo. 
The  Brettons  are  supposed  to  be  unmixed  Celts,  a  variety  of  the 
white  race  not  pre-eminent  for  cleanliness. 

The  English  are  the  cleanest  people  of  Europe,  a  distinction 
which  is  not  shared  with  their  fellow-subjects,  Welsh,  Scotch,  or 
Irish.  Next  come  the  Dutch  and  Belgians,  whose  virtue  on  this 
side  shines  most,  however,  in  their  houses  and  streets,  so  that  it  is 
a  satisfaction  to  cross  from  Germany  or  from  France,  into  Bel- 
gium. To  learn  that  the  interior  condition  does  not  match  with 
the  outward,  one  has  only  to  sojourn  for  a  few  weeks  in  a  small 
Belgian  town.  But  any  advance  in  cleanliness  is  grateful  and 
important,  and  a  man  who  wears  a  fresh  collar  and  bosom  over  a 
dirty  shirt  and  an  unwashed  skin,  is  a  better  neighbor  at  table 
than  if  he  had  frankly  exhibited  his  soiled  linen.  Nor  is  the  Bel- 
gian neatness  a  false  collar,  it  is  genuine  so  far  as  it  goes. 

On  coming  into  Belgium,  the  travellers  who,  witnessing  the  ac- 
tivity in  Liege  and  in  the  docks  of  Antwerp,  and  beholding  the 
spaded  tillage  of  the  fields,  should  talk  only  with  the  wealthy  and 
read  the  Independance  Beige,  or  the  Emancipation,  might  excusa- 
bly follow  the  common  error  that  the  Belgians  are  a  very  pros- 
perous people.  While  in  1848,  their  neighbors  of  Germany  and 
France  were  in  hot  insurrection,  they  remained  cool ;  they  are 
thriving  and  happy,  and  have  nothing  to  gain  by  change. 

Over  nations  as  over  men,  there  is  in  our  misorganized  Chris- 
tendom a  thick  crust  of  hypocrisy,  under  which,  instead  of  the 

5* 


106  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

sweet  juices  of  what  is  ripe  and  healthful,  are  crudities  and  pu. 
trescence.  Let  us  break  this  crust,  and  note  what  we  find  be- 
neath  it  in  Belgium. 

The  official  report*  of  the  census,  taken  in  1848,  makes  known 
the  number  of  families  in  Belgium  to  be  890,566,  and  of  inhabi- 
tants 4,337,196,  being  about  five  persons  to  each  family. 

The  habitations  of  these  890,566  families  contain  2,758,966 
rooms,  including  cellars  and  inhabited  garrets,  giving  to  each 
family  three  rooms.  Little  enough,  and  less  than  is  needful  for 
health  or  comfort,  or  even  decency.  But  this  is  the  average. 
Many  families  have  more  than  three  rooms,  and  many  therefore 
less.  The  census  declares  that 

154,454  families  have  each  but  one  room ; 
282,785  families,  each  two ; 
453,327,  three  or  more. 

Thus  437,239  families,  making  almost  one  half  of  the  Belgium 
nation,  have  each  but  one  or  two  rooms  for  their  whole  habitation. 

Over  two  millions  of  men,  women,  and  children,  every  five  of 
whom  are  lodged  in  one  or  two  wretched  rooms,  badly  lighted 
and  worse  ventilated,  and  in  winter  poorly  warmed  ;  this  one 
room  or  two,  serving  as  dining-room,  kitchen,  storeroom,  cellar, 
work-room,  sleeping-room,  with  rotting  straw  for  beds,  or  leaves 
which  you  may  see  them  gathering  for  this  purpose  in  autumn, 
on  the  highway. 

In  the  cities,  the  proportion  of  families  that  have  but  one  or  two 
rooms  is  larger  than  in  the  country.  Antwerp  counts  18,000  fami- 
lies, 11,000  of  which  have  but  one  or  two  rooms.  Brussels  has 
30,000  families,  13,700  of  which  have  but  a  single  room,  and 
6,800  two  rooms.  The  medical  commission  of  the  city  of  Brus- 
sels, declares  that  the  abodes  of  the  greatest  part  of  the  laborers  of 

*  See  the  speech  of  M.  de  Perceval,  member  of  the  Belgian  Chamber  of 
Representatives. 


STATISTICS.  107 

that  city,  are  "  living  tombs  whither  these  wretched  men  come  to 
rest  themselves,  after  twelve  hours  of  work." 

The  food  of  these  two  millions  is  chiefly  rye  bread  and  potatoes, 
and  a  limited  quantity  of  these.  In  "good  times,"  they  have  meat 
or  fish  once  or  twice  a  week,  but  it  is  the  refuse  of  the  markets — 
liver,  lungs,  heart,  intestines,  what  in  America  is  given  to  dogs. 

On  the  30th  of  June,  1850,  in  the  provinces  of  Flanders,  out 
of  a  population  of  1,415,484  there  were  349,438  inscribed  on  the 
list  of  paupers. 

The  habitations  of  half  the  population  of  Belgium  are  hot-beds 
for  the  forcing  of  physical  and  moral  evils.  Diseases  generated 
by  bad  air  and  bad  diet  sweep  off  annually  thousands  of  puny 
children. 

From  these  two  millions  what  is  to  be  looked  for  morally  and 
intellectually  for  themselves,  for  the  state.  A  man  who  has 
worked  twelve  hours  to  earn  twenty  cents,  and  then  drags  him- 
self through  the  stenches  of  filthy  alleys  to  the  stale  odors  of  a 
pestilential  home,  to  find  there  a  haggard  toil-worn  wife,  and  sad, 
pale,  hungry  children,  a  supper  of  coarse  brown  bread,  and  a  bed 
of  foul  straw,  what  moral  content,  what  civic  strength  do  his 
slumbers  replenish  ?  He  lies  down  without  a  thank  for  the  day 
that  is  ended,  he  rises  without  a  hope  for  the  day  that  is  be- 
ginning. 

When  two  millions  out  of  four  and  a  half  writhe  in  this  unhu- 
man  degradation,  the  others  will  not  have  exemption  from  the  ills 
of  physical  and  moral  poverty.  The  most  favored  of  a  com- 
munity cannot  so  isolate  themselves  but  that  against  them  will  re- 
act the  condition  of  the  lowest,  through  conductors  which  no 
strength  or  skill  can  cut.  The  chastest  maiden,  whose  thoughts 
and  sensations  build  round  her  a  halo  that  draws  the  homage  of 
the  purest,  cannot,  on  the  highest  social  elevation,  escape  infec- 
tion from  the  sickly  breath  of  the  harlot,  whom  she  is  yet  too 
innocent  to  know  of.  It  strikes  like  the  inpalpable  vapors  of  the 


108  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

pest.  Unconsciously  to  herself  her  moral  being  is  modified  by 
the  proximity  of  this  social  disease.  Under  Russian  despotism, 
Belgian  constitutional  monarchism,  American  republicanism,  men 
must  form  communities,  they  must  have  much  in  common,  and 
cannot  be  rid  of  mutual  dependence.  In  a  higher  social  organiza- 
tion this  dependence,  which  men  now  seek  vainly  to  shake  off, 
will  be  cultivated  and  a  thousand-fold  multiplied  and  strengthened, 
and  with  its  strength  will  grow  each  man's  moral  and  intellectual 
power  and  his  freedom. 

In  a  social  or  political  whole,  whether  constructed  on  a  sound 
or  fragile  basis,  parts  dovetail  into  parts,  individuals  into  indi- 
viduals. Connected,  intermingled,  interlaced  with  the  two  millions 
of  semi-paupers  of  Belgium  are  other  two  millions  of  fellow- 
laborers,  having  more  skill,  many  of  them  a  little  capital,  earning 
instead  of  a  franc,  two,  three,  five  francs,  or  more  per  day,  who 
are  most  of  them  thus  enabled  to  exchange  often  brown  bread  for 
white,  and  to  garnish  their  potatoes  and  beans  with  more  or  less 
of  animal  nutriment.  The  iron  hand  of  poverty  is  not  on  them,  it 
is  only  suspended  over  their  heads,  and  from  them  are  replenished 
the  ranks  of  the  lowest  masses,  thousands  annually  slipping 
through  the  restless  sieve  of  trading  competition. 

Of  the  890,566  families  not  more  than  ninety  thousand,  if  so 
many,  are  clear  of  the  pressure  of  straitened  means.  Three 
or  four  hundred  thousand  individuals,  out  of  four  and  a  half 
millions,  whose  daily  life  is  softened  by  the  comforts  of  civiliza- 
tion, who  along  with  spacious  carpeted  lodging,  meats  fatted  and 
cooked  with  art,  the  luxuries  as  well  as  the  utilities  furnished 
from  flax,  cotton  and  wool,  enjoy  leisure  for  culture,  exemption 
from  over-work  and  the  freedom  of  movement  allowed  by  pecu- 
niary ease.  These  favored  few  are  the  upper  ranks  of  the 
"  liberal  professions,"  the  bankers,  merchants  and  large  traders, 
the  higher  civil  and  military  officers  of  the  state,  those  who  have 
inherited  large  capital,  especially  the  "  Noblesse,"  who,  though 


RELATIVE  CONDITION   OF  BELGIUM.  109 

now  unrecognized  by  the  state,  enjoy  with  wealth  the  highest 
social  position. 

Relatively  to  the  four  millions  below  them,  these  four  hundred 
thousand  have  a  happy  existence  ;  relatively  to,  not  a  hopeless 
ideal,  but  to  a  condition  attainable  within  the  limits  of  a  genera- 
tion by  a  hundred  millions  of  living  Christians,  their  life  is  barren, 
encumbered,  slavish. 

I  have  -cited  Belgium,  not  because  its  statistics  present  a  pecu- 
liarly dark  picture,  but  because,  on  the  contrary,  in  Europe  it  is 
regarded  as  a  shining  model  of  national  weal.  Bad  enough,  that 
"  Statesmanship"  and  Political  Economy  should  bring  nations  to 
this  pass  ;  worse,  that  they  know  not  how  to  get  them  out  of  it ; 
worst,  that  they  perceive  not  the  need  of  getting  them  out  of  it. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

» 

FRANCE — DEMOCRACY — BONAPARTE — LOUIS   PHILIPPE — LOUIS   BONAPARTE. 

VIVE  la  Republique  ! 

We  have  crossed  the  line  that  divides  Belgium  from  France. 
Vive  la  Republique  !  What  a  promise,  what  a  hope  is  in  that 
shout !  What  achievements  it  proclaims,  what  consummations  it 
prophesies  !  Not  with  the  outward  voice  of  a  catching  momen- 
tary fervor,  bet  solemnly  from  the  depths  of  a  soul-enkindled 
feeling  be  that  stirring  sound  re-uttered.  It  is  the  rally-cry  of 
Christendom.  To  France  all  Europe  looks  with  hope.  She  is 
the  centre  of  the  new  regenerating  movement.  Regenerating,  not 
because  it  substitutes  Presidents  for  Kings,  citizen-representatives 
for  Barons  ;  but  because  it  is  to  break  down  political  monopoly, 
to  make  governors  amenable  to  the  governed,  and,  far  more  than 
this,  because  by  giving  each  man  a  vote,  it  is  to  raise  each  voter 
to  be  a  man. 

Economy,  simplicity,  supplanting  military  by  civil  processes, 
less  partiality  in  legislation  and  administration,  wiser  legislators 
and  administrators  (for  this  in  the  long  run  is  the  result),  equality 
before  the  law,  bettering  of  most  public  methods, — all  these  are 
the  minor  gains  of  republicanism,  whose  essential  virtue  is  in  the 
energizing  of  the  primary  elements,  in  the  recognition,  cultiva- 
tion, refinement,  enlargement  of  the  substance  out  of  which  all 
forms  of  policy  spring,  and  upon  which  they  re-act,  viz.  :  the 
masses  of  a  nation,  the  individuals  of  its  component  multitudes, 


PROGRESS  OF  DEMOCRACY.  Ill 

in  Europe  so  brutified  by  monarchic  and  aristocratic  despotism 
as  to  have  been  lately  designated  by  a  leading  "  Statesman,"  M. 
Thiers,  as  la  vile  multitude. 

Democracy  is  the  diffusion,  and  at  the  same  time  the  invigor- 
ation  of  light  and  organic  life.  It  vitalizes  the  remotest  parts  ; 
through  it,  generic  power  permeates  the  whole  social  body.  It 
is  a  substitution  of  man  for  the  State,  of  men  for  things,  of  souls 
for  bodies.  Demanding  liberty,  it  creates  what  it  needs  ;  it  be- 
gets the  vigor  whereby  it  is  to  be  braced.  Proclaiming  the  power 
of  self-government,  it  develops  a  broader,  deeper  self.  He  who 
.  believes  not  in  self-government  is  less  than  a  democrat ;  he  who 
does  is  more.  Democracy  is  progressive  and  expansive.  Its  as- 
cendency is  the  gain  of  much  liberty,  and  the  assurance  of  more. 

Honor  to  France.  A  glory  greater  than  that  dazzling  one 
whereby  she  was  so  long  blinded  is  hers,  the  glory  due  to  bold- 
ness  and  insight  in  social  transformations.  In  this  sphere  more 
fruitful  will  be  her  courage  than  in  the  battle-field,  although  on 
that  there  may  be  still  some  last  laurels  for  her  to  gather.  Na- 
pier, in  his  History  of  the  Peninsular  War,  celebrating  the  bril- 
liant bravery  of  a  French  charge,  notes  as  a  characteristic  of 
French  nature,  that  the  first  fiery  onslaught  being  repelled,  their 
line  is  disheartened.  They  lack  elasticity  under  defeat.  Not  so 
in  that  other  higher  field.  With  fresh  hope  and  spirit  they  have 
returned  to  the  charge  under  the  banner  of  Democracy,  after 
lying  for  fifty  years  in  defeat.  And  again  partially  worsted 
after  the  triumphant  onslaught  of  1848,  they  exhibit  a  determi- 
nation, fortitude,  calmness,  forbearance,  that  bespeak  convictions 
matured  by  thought,  and  a  confidence  that  cannot  be  broken  by 
discomfiture. 

The  morning  of  new  eras  is  liable  to  be  overcast;  but  blinded 
by  ignorance  or  fear  or  malignity  are  they  who  mistake  this  tran- 
sitory obscuration  for  a  relapse  to  the  past  darkness.  A  people 
that  has  in  it  the  juices  for  mature  strength  may  be  retarded  in 


112  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

its  progress,  but  not  arrested  ;  and  what  seem  forced  retardations} 
from  without  may  be  the  natural  currents  of  occult  growth.  The 
political  revolutions  of  such  a  people  can  no  more  go  back  than 
can  the  planetary  revolutions  of  the  earth.  Evolutions  they 
should  be  called,  for  they  are  developments,  however  crash- 
ing may  be  the  inaugurating  acts.  Democracy,  or  self-govern- 
ment, lies  potentially  at  the  heart  of  every  people,  that  is,  of 
every  people  of  the  white  races.  The  time  and  manner  of  its 
emergence  depend  on  mental  constitution  and  outward  influences. 
In  England,  where  its  spirit  was  ever  strong,  it  took  possession  of 
the  State  under  the  Commonwealth,  but  it  had  not  yet  the  cordial 
strength  to  impel  itself  arterially  into  all  the  members ;  and  the 
most  capable  man  whom  it  created  being  by  nature  despotic  in- 
stead of  generous,  regal  instead  of  Christian,  principles  were 
smothered  under  usurpations,  so  that  the  bastard  monarchy  of 
Cromwell  was  at  his  death  easily  supplanted  by  the  legitimate 
monarchy  of  the  Stuarts.  Many  too  of  the  most  resolute  for 
freedom  had  already  fled  across  the  sea  to  the  newly  discovered 
Continent,  there  on  its  virgin  shores,  unbefouled  by  the  tares  of 
oligarchical  egotism,  to  lay  foundations  whereon  was  to  rise  a 
political  fabric  of  purely  democratic  architecture,  whose  starry 
flag,  unfurled  at  the  end  of  the  18th  century,  was  before  the 
middle  of  the  19th  to  challenge  the  regards  of  the  world  as  that 
of  a  preponderating  Power  among  Christian  States.  Democracy 
had,  if  not  its  birth,  its  first  wide  national  development  in  America. 
In  France  it  came  forth  a  blind  Samson,  and  buried  itself 
under  the  ruins  caused  by  its  rageful  grasp.  Its  movement  was 
that  of  the  loosened  lion,  whose  courage  is  made  frantic  by  hunger 
and  fear.  Men  glared  on  men  like  unchained  demons  in  a  fam- 
ished hell.  Wi;h  insane  relish  they  lapped  blood  :  that  was  their 
elixir  for  political  renovation.*  But  all  this  was  transient,  ex- 

*  In  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  seventy  thousand  Frenchmen 
were  slain,  two  thousand  of  them  in  Paris.    During  the  two  years  of  the 


BONAPARTE  BEHIND  HIS  AGE.  113 

plosive  phenomena,  the  agony  of  a  great  people's  travail  where 
nature  had  been  poisoned,  the  convulsive  writhings  of  an  awa- 
kening giant  against  gyves  and  handcuffs.  It  denoted  the  great 
strength  of  the  binding  cords,  and  the  still  greater  of  the  power 
that  rent  them.  This  power  had  at  last  recognized  itself,  and  no 
bonds  could  ever  again  durably  enthrall  it.  But  here,  as  in  Eng- 
land, the  strongest  child  democracy  had  nursed,  wielded  the  might 
wherewith  she  endowed  him  for  the  transitory  ends  of  an  impious 
ambition. 

Bonaparte  was  behind  his  age  ;  he  was  a  man  of  the  past. 
The  value  of  the  great  modern  instruments  and  the  modern  heart 
and  growth  he  did  not  discern.  He  went  groping  in  the  mediae- 
val times  to  find  the  lustreless  sceptre  of  Charlemagne,  and  he 
saw  not  the  paramount  potency  there  now  is  in  that  of  Faust. 
He  was  a  great  cannoneer,  not  a  great  builder.  In  the  centre  of 
Europe,  from  amidst  the  most  advanced,  scientific  nation  on 
earth,  after  nineteen  centuries  of  Christianity,  not  to  perceive  that 
lead  in  the  form  of  type  is  far  more  puissant  than  in  the  form  of 
bullets  ;  not  to  feel  that  for  the  head  of  the  French  nation  to  desire 
an  imperial  crown  was  as  unmanly  as  it  was  disloyal,  that  a  ri- 
valry of  rotten  Austria  and  barbaric  Russia  was  a  despicable 
vanity  ;  not  to  have  yet  learnt  how  much  stronger  ideas  are  than 
blows,  principles  than  edicts — to  be  blind  to  all  this,  was  to  want 
vision,  insight,  wisdom.  Bonaparte  was  not  the  original  genius 
he  has  been  vaunted  ;  he  was  a  vulgar  copyist,  and  Alexander 
of  Macedon,  and  Frederick  of  Prussia  were  his  models.  Force 
was  his  means,  despotism  his  aim  ;  war  was  his  occupation,  pomp 
his  relaxation.  For  him  the  world  was  divided  into  two — his 
will,  and  those  who  opposed  it.  He  acknowledged  no  duty,  he 
respected  no  right,  he  flouted  at  integrity,  he  despised  truth.  He 
had  no  belief  in  man,  no  trust  in  God.  In  his  wants  he  was  ig. 

"  Reign  of  Terror."  from  '92  to  '94,  two  thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty- 
seven  were  executed  in  Paris. 


114  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

noble,  in  his  methods  ignorant.  He  was  possessed  by  the  lust  of 
isolated,  irresponsible,  boundless,  heartless  power,  and  he  believed 
that  he  could  found  it  with  the  sword  and  bind  it  with  lies ;  and 
so,  ere  he  began  to  grow  old,  what  he  had  founded  had  already 
toppled,  and  what  he  had  bound  was  loosed.  He  fell,  and  as  if 
history  would  register  his  disgrace  with  a  more  instructive  em- 
phasis, he  fell  twice ;  and  exhausted  France,  beleaguered  by  a 
million  of  armed  foes,  had  to  accept  the  restored  imbecile  Bour- 
bons. 

But  that  could  not  last  a  generation.  For  a  dozen  years  the 
military  boots  of  Napoleon  had  trodden  down  the  crop  of  aspira- 
tions and  thoughts  that  sprang  up  with  the  Revolution,  but  had 
not  killed  them.  The  soldier's  heel  cannot  stamp  the  life  out  of 
ideas.  They  had  lived  and  made  roots  in  silence  and  secrecy, 
under  the  ghastly  saturnalia  of  bloody  fruitless  conquests  and 
Imperial  tyrannies  and  ostentations.  With  the  old  men  had  come 
back  the  old  egotisms,  the  old  arrogances,  the  old  inhumanities, 
the  old  feudal  desires.  But  the  old  narrow  forms  had  been  shat- 
tered, the  old  growths  cut  up  by  the  roots,  and  in  their  place 
were  new  wants,  new  hopes,  new  convictions.  The  old  men, 
brought  back  by  the  enemies  of  France,  stood  isolated  round  the 
old  throne.  The  nation  was  against  them,  and  more  than  the 
nation,  new  truths  were  against  them.  Now  was  manifest  the 
virtue  of  the  great  bloody  revolution.  It  had  engendered  a  new 
mind,  broader,  deeper,  more  earnest,  higher,  stronger,  richer  than 
the  old  one  ;  and  the  young  generation  that  entered  the  arena  at 
the  downfall  of  Napoleon,  enlightened  by  its  fire,  exalted  by  its 
vigor,  was  the  eager  heir  of  the  principles,  without  being  contam- 
inated by  the  errors,  of  the  revolution.  The  propped  throne  was 
again  upset,  and  the  kingly  brother  of  Louis  XVI.  was  not,  like 
him,  brought  to  the  block,  but  driven  from  France.  In  the 
"  three  days  of  July,"  1830,  the  patchwork  of  the  Holy  Alliance 
was  by  the  indignant  people  torn  to  shreds. 


LOUIS  PHILIPPE.  115 

But  a  bulky  old  State,  so  deeply  diseased,  in  order  to  be  purged 
and  righted,  needs  several  crises.  Its  huge  load  of  malady  it  can 
only  be  rid  of  through  successive  throes.  France  had  yet  to 
carry  on  her  breast  for  some  years,  the  imposthume  of  Royalty. 
The  "  Reign  of  Terror"  was  vivid  in  the  memory  of  many,  and 
its  bloody  image  still  rose  up  minatory  whenever  men  directed 
their  thoughts  towards  practical  republicanism.  The  sins  of  that 
lurid  epoch  were  not  yet  expiated.  "  Vive  le  Roi !"  no  longer  a 
cordial  cry,  was  still  for  a  season  to  be  the  only  one  legal.  Many 
even  of  the  republicans  accepted  the  project  of  "  a  throne  sur- 
rounded by  republican  institutions."  This  absurdity  had  to  be 
tried  in  order  to  be  known.  One  would  suppose,  that  the  shape- 
lessness  of  such  a  political  monster  would  have  been  apparent  to 
men's  minds  without  the  shock  of  practical  evidence.  Louis 
Philippe,  the  head  of  the  younger  branch  of  the  Bourbons,  was 
declared  King. 

This  man's  life,  previously  to  his  gaining  the  throne,  was  one 
long  promise ;  his  life  on  the  throne,  was  one  long  lie.  The  bond 
for  "  republican  institutions"  was  kept  by  restricting  the  right  of 
voting  at  all  to  the  election  of  the  lower  Chamber,  and  limiting 
the  number  of  voters  to  the  two  hundred  thousand  richest  men  of 
France  ;  by  the  creation  of  a  House  of  Peers  appointed  by  the 
King ;  by  the  most  rigid  centralization  of  all  legislative  and  ad- 
ministrative power ;  by  obstructing  and  gagging  the  Press,  and 
withholding  the  right  of  meeting :  by  upholding,  in  so  far  as  he 
could,  the  despotisms  of  Europe.  Like  all  men  who  merely  cal- 
culate, Louis  Philippe  miscalculated.  In  his  own  bosom  he  had 
naught  wherewith  to  measure  the  moral  force  of  mankind.  Sor- 
did and  unscrupulous  himself,  he  believed  that  all  men  could  be 
bought,  and  that  by  buying  a  half  million  he  could  control  the 
nation,  and  consolidate  the  throne  for  himself  and  his  family. 
Himself  and  his  family,  this  was  his  absorbing  thought :  self- 
aggrandizement  was  the  end,  France  and  Frenchmen  were  but 


116  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

his  means.  He  was  endured  for  eighteen  long  years,  when 
France,  betrayed  and  corrupted,  wrathful  at  his  want  of  faith, 
disgusted  at  his  baseness,  thrust  him  ignominiously  from  his  per- 
jured throne,  giving  him  the  remnant  of  his  contemptible  life  to 
wear  it  out  in  England,  where  he  died  as  he  had  lived,  his  mind 
teeming  to  the  last  with  intrigues  and  hypocrisies. 

Now  swelled  the  popular  heart.  To  claim  their  long  seques- 
tered rights,  the  millions  came  forth,  strong  in  hope,  strong  in 
justice,  strong  with  a  new  intelligence,  strong  in  their  forbear- 
ance, their  forgiveness.  The  Republic  was  declared,  and  with  it 
universal  tolerance,  and  a  many-sided  freedom.  But  the  goal  of 
a  stable  liberty  was  not  yet  attained.  The  Royalists  were  routed, 
not  annihilated.  Too  weak  for  open  war,  they  had  strength  for 
secret  mischief.  The  Republicans  themselves  were  not  united. 
Fresh  convulsions  ensanguined  the  streets  of  Paris,  and  embit- 
tered the  public  mind.  Moreover,  France  had  yet  another  ex- 
piation to  make.  She  had  to  expiate  the  sin  of  pride  in  Napoleon 
and  of  the  vanity  of  military  glory.  His  spirit  was  to  give  her 
one  more  scourging.  At  her  call,  he  came  back  in  the  emaciated 
shape  of  his  nephew,  elected  through  universal  suffrage  by  an 
immense  majority,  the  first  President  of  the  Republic. 

Louis  Bonaparte  is  cunning,  resolute,  and  unscrupulous,  with 
an  ordinary  intellect  and  an  ordinary  heart,  and  thence  without 
principles  or  convictions.  He  is  an  ambitious  mediocrity.  His 
ambition  being  of  that  vulgarest  kind,  that  springs  from  an  intense 
love  of  self,  is  unleavened  by  any  enthusiasm  or  expansiveness. 
He  took  the  oath  as  President  with  Empire  in  his  heart.  That 
a  man  of  this  calibre  should  in  the  19th  century  be  in  a  position 
even  to  aspire  to  be  Emperor  of  France  !  To  gain  the  Imperial 
diadem,  Napoleon  did  immense  things;  and  repeated  them,  in 
order  to  wear  it  for  a  brief  space.  The  largest  thing  the  nephew 
will  do  in  his  lifetime,  will  be  to  have  aspired  to  fill  his  uncle's 
seat.  His  dream  will  be  his  greatest  deed.  No  spectacle  is 


LIBERTY,  EQUALITY,  FRATERNITY.  117 

more  pitiable  than  that  of  a  small  man  in  a  great  place.  France, 
by  offering  this  spectacle  to  the  world  in  her  first  President,  is 
expiating  Napoleonism. 

Napoleon,  Louis  Philippe,  Louis  Bonaparte, — here  is  an  anti- 
climax of  rulers.  Rulers !  Baffled  bunglers.  The  day  for  the 
rule  of  men  is  passed.  Even  the  strong  Napoleon  was  incapable 
of  ruling.  The  Christian  world  has  outgrown  individual  rulers; 
ideas,  principles  now  rule.  He  who  in  authority  is  not  imbued, 
bemastered  by  these,  is  at  most  an  obstruction  that  temporarily 
angers  the  current,  which,  arrested  for  a  time,  chafes  and  eddies, 
and  then  sweeps  into  the  abyss  all  that  obstructs  it.  The  great 
Bonaparte  was  so  swept  down ;  and  the  wary  Louis  Philippe ; 
yet  now,  when  the  stream  is  far  deeper  and  stronger,  the  little 
Bonaparte  would  thrust  forward  his  petty  personality  to  divert  its 
flooding  course,  to  make  its  boiling  waters  back  !  The  highest 
that  a  shrewd  judgment  could  have  devised  for  such  as  he  is, 
had  been,  to  float  for  a  season  the  apparent  helm  of  the  State,  on 
the  ocean  of  Democracy. 

For,  Democracy,  with  the  broad  deep  principles  which  it  in- 
volves and  unfolds,  is  henceforward  to  rule  in  France.  Ideas, 
once  rooted  in  a  great  people,  cannot  be  uptorn.  They  grow 
until  they  embrace  with  their  life  every  being  on  the  soil.  With 
their  wide  sun-like  warmth  they  grasp  the  cold  egotisms  of  a  de- 
parted power,  that  vanish  before  them  like  icicles  before  the 
solstitial  rays. 

Over  the  portal  of  the  Palace,  where  this  soulless  retrospective 
aspirant  would  already  play  the  mimic  Emperor,  are  largely 
stamped  words  that  are  to  him,  and  to  all  who  with  him  or  like 
him  plot  for  regal  or  imperial  sway,  a  terrific  writing  on  the 
wall :  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity.  Before  these  great  words, 
illuminated  by  a  nation's  faith,  they  recoil  stricken  with  dread, 
so  committed  are  they  to  usurpation,  so  tethered  to  fraud  and  force, 
so  blinded  by  sensuality,  so  hateful  of  what  is  noble  and  generous. 


118  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

These  sublime  words,  uttered  in  a  mood  of  prophetic  exaltation, 
proclaim  the  beauty  and  unsounded  potency  of  the  human  heart. 
These  beautiful  words,  the  tokens  of  things  more  beautiful,  re- 
assert the  Christian  promise  of  love  and  peace.  They  are  a  rain- 
bow splendor,  painted  on  the  evanescent  clouds  of  despair  by  the 
eternal  Suu  of  hope.* 

*  Since  this  chapter  was  written  has  come  the  coup  d'etat  of  Louis 
Bonaparte.  This  usurpation  seems  to  dash  the  hopes  and  confound  the 
estimates  herein  expressed.  If  the  life  of  a  nation  were  reckoned  by  months 
and  years  and  not  by  decades  and  centuries,  it  would  do  so.  A  great 
Christian  people  cannot  go  back-  Principles  must  triumph  over  expedients. 
I  believe  in  God,  not  in  the  Devil ;  in  the  victory  of  good  over  evil. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

A  DAY  IN  PARIS. 

AT  six  in  the  morning  of  May  20th,  1851,  through  the  tall, 
wide  chamber- window,  that  lets  in  light  from  ceiling  to  floor,  my 
just-awakened  eyes  look  from  my  pillow  upon  the  green  plane- 
trees  that  grow  in  the  vacant  lot  opposite  to  No.  8  rue  du  Helder. 
Their  large  foliage  is  shaking  coolly  in  the  morning  breeze.  In 
the  centre  of  Paris  this  tree-decked  void  is  now  rare.  Favored  is 
the  Parisian  lodger  who  has  such  opposite  neighbors.  They 
adorn  my  room,  and  make  me  free  in  it :  they  are  at  once  my 
curtains  and  my  companions. 

The  hour  of  waking  is  a  solemn  hour.  We  have  just  past 
suddenly  from  darkness  into  light,  from  death  to  life.  Uncon- 
scious babes  we  come  crying  into  the  world,  and  this  matinal  re- 
birth is  a  conscious  daily  entrance  upon  a  scene  of  sorrow.  It  is 
the  hour  when  yesterday  is  nearest, — yesterday  that  silently 
wrings  the  conscience,  like  the  saddened  gaze  of  a  dying  friend 
whom  we  have  wronged.  He  is  gone  forever,  and  we  have  not 
been  to  him  what  we  should  have  been.  But  we  get  hardened  to 
these  retrospective  upbraidings,  and  thrusting  yesterday  behind 
us  in  thought  as  he  is  in  fact,  we  turn  in  our  bed, — the  will  not 
being  yet  enough  electrified  to  lift  us  out  of  recumbency  into  up- 
rightness,— and  boldly  or  timorously,  despondently  or  hopefully 
indifferently  or  cheerfully,  we  confront  the  new  day  that  the  sun 
has  just  brought  to  us  from  the  mysterious  East.  For  myself, 


120  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

being  bent  on  extra  work,  action  cuts  short  meditation,  and  I  leap 
out  of  bed  into  water  at  58°  Fahrenheit, — a  temperature  to  be 
recommended  to  those  who  possess  the  privilege  of  beginning 
every  day  with  a  cold  bath. 

The  window  unlatched,  turning  on  double  hinges  like  a  folding 
door,  opens  its  whole  expanse.  Fresh  and  sweet  the  morning  air 
rolls  in,  untainted  up  here  in  the  Premier  (what  we  should  call 
the  third  story)  by  the  impurities  of  the  pavement.  The  cries  of 
Paris  are  in  full  chorus,  the  old-clothes  men  leading  the  peripatetic 
band.  Opposite,  a  hydrant, — set  running  for  two  hours  morning, 
noon  and  evening  for  domestic  service  and  to  gargle  the  gutters, — 
pours  forth  a  vigorous  stream,  that  seems  to  delight  in  its  own 
cool  gush. 

Issuing  through  the  porte-cochere  into  the  street,  a  little 

past  seven,  a  few  steps  bring  us  to  the  corner,  where  we  surprise 
the  Boulevard  des  Italiens  in  complete  deshabille.  Brooms,  dus- 
ters, water-pails  are  busy  ;  shop-windows  are  disgarnished  ;  cafes 
are  turned  out  of  doors  to  be  swept ;  the  broad  sidewalks,  the 
afternoon  home  for  swarms  of  idlers,  are  unpeopled,  save  by  the 
initiatory  providers  of  the  day,  the  indispensable  purveyors,  who 
could  be  as  ill  spared  as  the  Sun  with  whom  they  rise,  the  bread- 
men  and  water-men  and  milk-men.  Sad-looking  women  are  on 
their  way  to  the  close  hives,  where  a  whole  day's  lung-and-eye- 
wearing  stitchwork  earns  for  them  a  minimum  of  life's  first 
necessaries.  An  ice-cart,  with  its  circular  thatched  roof,  is  at 
Tortoni's. — We  have  reached  the  Boulevard  Montmartre  ;  the 
shade  on  the  east  side  is  already  welcome.  Opposite,  a  line  of 
cabs,  mostly  of  royal  blue  with  white  ponies,  has  taken  its  stand 
of  passive  expectancy.  Cabmen  are  favored  :  they  enjoy  several 
of  the  first  elements  of  well-being.  They  are  all  day  in  the  open 
air  ;  they  are  never  like  other  mortals  deserted  by  hope,  upon 
which  it  may  be  said  they  chiefly  live  ;  they  frequent  the  best 
houses,  keep  good  company,  and  always  ride.  In  return  for 


THE  CHIFFONIERS.  121 

these  blessings,  they  are  contented  and  civil ;  and  if,  to  their 
small  perquisite  you  add  a  sous  or  two,  they  on  their  part  will  add 
to  their  "  merci,  monsieur,"  a  cordiality  and  gratitude  of  tone  that 
at  once  make  you  the  gainer  by  the  gift. 

The  daily  inaugurating  act  of  each  house  in  Paris  is,  to  purge 
itself  of  the  sweepings  and  rejected  kitchen-fragments  of  the  past 
twenty-four  hours,  which  are  thrown  out  in  piles  on  the  edge 
of  the  sidewalk,  where  they  await  the  scavenger-carts  that  come 
along  towards  eight.  But  ere  these  can  arrive  squalid  Poverty, 
pricked  out  of  sleep  by  Hunger,  has  started  from  its  filthy  couch, 
and  dispersed  through  the  streets  its  tattered  hordes.  At  this  mo- 
ment over  every  pile  of  garbage  bends  a  hungry  proletarian, 
seeking  therein  his  breakfast,  and  it  may  be  his  dinner.  Look  at 
that  man,  a  deep,  wide-mouthed  basket  strapped  to  his  back. 
With  a  short  stick,  hooked  at  one  end,  he  rakes  into  the  pile, 
drives  his  hook  into  rag  or  paper,  delivers  what  he  has  pinned 
into  the  basket,  with  a  rapid  jerk  of  the  stick  over  his  shoulder, 
and  ferrets  again  into  the  foul  heap  with  an  eye  made  keen  by 
want.  Here  is  another  who  has  laid  down  the  hook,  and  with 
his  hands  is  picking  out  bones.  I  have  seen  a  man  and  a  dog 
fraternally  exploring  the  same  pile.  A  little  further  a  woman 
is  sorting,  at  the  edge  of  the  gutter,  the  rejected  lemon-peels  of 
a  cafe  /  the  best  of  them, — for  to  poverty  there  is  choice  in  lowest 
degrees, — she  throws  into  her  basket,  and  will  perhaps,  out  of 
this  refuse  of  an  orgie,  concoct  a  savory  draft  for  her  sick  child. 
These  are  the  chiffoniers,  the  rag-gatherers. 

Seizing  a  moment  of  intermittence  in  the  flow  of  carts,  man- 
drawn  as  well  as  horse-drawn,  and  of  lazy-looking  cabs,  we  crosa 
the  rue  Montmartre,  one  of  the  great  arteries  of  Paris.  We 
meet  squads  of  laborers  in  blue  Mouses,  with  tools  on  shoulder, 
going  to  their  work,  distant  for  many  of  them  a  league  or  more 
from  their  homes  in  the  quartier  St.  Antoine, — if  homes  those 
can  be  called  where  there  is  so  little  of  privacy  and  comfort  for 

6 


122  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  few  hours  they  are  in  them.  On  the  edge  of  the  sidewalk 
of  the  Boulevard  Bonne  Nouvelle  three  drivers  of  public  sprink- 
ling-carts are  lying,  two  of  them  asleep.  Through  the  band  of 
the  broad-brimmed  drab  hat  of  each  is  a  rosebud,  shining  on  that 
coarse  ground,  like  Beauty  guarding  the  slumbers  of  Strength. 

We  are  now  at  the  Porte  St.  Denis.  The  mile  that  we  have 
come  on  the  Boulevard  is  but  a  small  segment  of  this  longest, 
broadest,  freest,  most  commodious,  most  lively,  most  variegated, 
most  magnificent  of  urban  avenues  in  the  world.  The  width  of 
this  queen  of  streets  is  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  feet,  the  one 
half  in  asphalte  sidewalks.  The  Porte  St.  Denis  is  a  triumphal 
arch  seventy  feet  high,  erected  more  than  a  century  since  on  the 
foundations  of  one  of  the  old  gates  of  Paris  in  honor  of  the  victorious 
campaigns  of  Louis  XIV.  On  the  entablature  you  read  in  large 
capitals,  LUDOVICO  MAGNO.  Monumental  inscriptions  that  are 
not  rescripts  of  the  general  judgment  are  speechless.  Empha- 
size, begild,  emblazon  them  as  you  will,  they  have  no  voice.  A 
score  of  triumphal  arches  could  not  make  great  stick  to  Louis  XIV., 
and  this  Magno  is  but  an  impotent  ostentation. 

As  we  retrace  our  steps,  the  Boulevard  is  fuller.  Here  a 
flower- woman  has  just  taken  her  stand.  For  a  bunch  of  rose- 
buds she  asks  ten  cents  and  takes  eight,  and  would  probably  have 
taken  six.  She  is  a  type  of  all  traders,  great  and  small,  whose 
aims,  means,  and  whole  practice  may  be  codified  into  one  brief 
precept ; — buy  as  cheap  and  sell  as  dear  as  you  can. — For  a 
moment  our  passage  is  obstructed  by  a  herd  of  she-asses  who, 
with  their  habitual  countenance  of  grave  resignation,  are  coming 
up  to  the  door  of  an  invalid,  to  whom  ass's  milk  has  been  pre- 
scribed by  some  doubting,  dogmatic  doctor.  The  stream  of 
busy  humanity  that  pours  out  of  the  Passage  Jouffroy  towards  the 
heart  of  the  city,  deepens.  Some  are  reading,  as  they  walk,  the 
morning  papers,  which  they  have  just  bought  at  a  news-stall. 
It  is  nearly  eight  when  we  re-enter  the  gate  of  the  Hotel  du  Tibre. 


PARIS  NEWSPAPERS.  123 

This  is  the  hour  for  breakfast  and  the  newspapers,  both 

excellent ;  for  the  bread  and  the  butter  of  Paris  are  sweet,  and 
the  newspapers  are  the  most  readable  in  the  world.  A  virtue  of 
French  nature  is,  that  it  is  intolerant  of  a  bore.  With  French- 
men the  style  enniueux  is  the  only  bad  style.  Their  best  pens 
work  for  the  newspapers.  At  this  moment  a  score  of  the  clever- 
est members  of  the  National  Assembly  are  habitual  contributors 
to  them.  Novelists,  poets,  men  of  science,  critics  of  high  name, 
fill  daily  their  feuillelons.  The  Paris  journals  have  less  quantity 
and  finer  quality,  less  matter  and  more  spirit,  less  about  trade  and 
more  about  taste,  than  those  of  England  or  America. 

The  French  speakers  and  writers  are  sounding  the  depths  of 
politics  with  as  much  ability  as  boldness.  Their  expositions 
throw  fresh  light  on  our  practice.  From  several  of  the  most 
marked  of  the  Paris  journals  of  this  morning  I  will  take  a  few 
sentences  as  samples  of  the  political  opinions  and  hopes  of  the  day. 

The  Assemblee  Nationate, — said  to  be  under  the  influence  of 
M.  Guizot, — shall  speak  in  a  single  sentence  for  all  the  Royal- 
ists : — "  Oui,  puisque  la  Republique  est  une  necessite  du  temps, 
de  la  confusion  des  idees  et  de  1'abaissement  des  courages,  subis- 
sons  la  avec  resignation."  The  resignation  here  preached  means 
resistance  at  the  first  opportunity ;  for  the  Royalists  have  under- 
standing and  will  not  understand,  and  they  do  sincerely  believe 
that  when  they  shall  have  gotten  rid  of  Louis  Bonaparte,  they 
can  permanently  put  down  democracy.  As  wisely  employed 
would  they  be  in  trying  to  put  down  light.  Is  the  Sun  too  lu- 
minous for  them,  they  can  in  no  other  way  escape  his  rays  than 
by  retreating  from  the  upper  earth  into  cellars  and  caverns. 
Can  they  not  bear  the  fertilizing  heat  of  Democracy,  let  them 
withdraw  into  the  wildernesses  of  Asiatic  despotism.  Europe  is 
no  place  for  them.  For  Europe,  under  the  momentum  imparted 
by  Christianity,  thought,  science,  instinct,  is  galloping  into  de- 
mocracy. 


124  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

It  might  be  thought,  that  the  Thiers  and  the  Guizots,  and  the 
Broughams,  being  shrewd,  practised  men,  know  better,  and  are 
hypocrites  when  they  denounce  Democracy.  To  account  for 
their  proceeding,  their  sincerity  need  not  be  questioned.  The 
intellectual  vision  of  such  men  gets  obscured  by  egotism.  They 
commenced  as  light-dispensing  liberals,  but  having  within  them 
no  cordial  love  of  truth  to  keep  their  minds  warm  and  elastic, 
they  have  become  narrowed  and  petrified  by  conceit  and  ambi- 
tion. They  never  were  other  than  political  adventurers,  self- 
seeking  speculators  in  the  market  of  Politics. 

The  Pays  has  lately  come  under  the  control  of  Lamartine. 
Writing  to-day  on  the  "  Republic  which  best  suits  France,"  he 
combats  the  project  of  an  Executive  named  by  the  Assembly. 
Here  is  a  brick  from  his  pile  : — "  Une  Assemblee  executant  elle- 
merne,  sans  division  des  pouvoirs,  c'est  la  confusion  des  pouvoirs, 
c'est  Pirresponsabilite  du  gouvernment,  c'est  Pimpunite  de  toutes 
les  oppressions  centre  le  peuple,  c'est  la  tyrannic  &  mille  tetes  ! 
C'est  la  Convention  !  En  voulez  vous  ?" 

The  Eepublique,  in  an  article  headed,  "  Monarchic  ou  Republi- 
que,"  and  signed  Ad.  Gueroult,  says: — "II  s'agit  de  choisir 
entre  le  regime  paternel  de  1'Autriche  et  le  gouvernement  du 
pays  par  lui-meme ;  de  retourner  au  moyen-age,  on  du  con- 
tinuer  la  Revolution  Fra^aise.  Qui  pourra  douter  du  resul- 
tat  ?" 

The  Presse,  when  its  proprietor,  Emile  de  Girardin,  puts  his 
soul  into  it  as  he  does  just  now,  is  the  ablest  journal  in  Christen- 
dom. It  glows  this  morning  with  power.  By  its  zeal,  ability 
and  vigor,  it  is  the  most  efficient  expounder  of  the  great  demo- 
cratic movement  in  France  and  Europe. 

To  royalist  papers,  quarrelling  about  the  elder  and  younger 
branches  of  the  Bourbons,  M.  de  Girardin  says: — "Ne  vous 
querellez  pas  :  ni  les  cadets  ni  les  aines  de  la  maison  de  Bourbon 
ne  reviendront  en  France,  &  moins  qu'il  ne  leur  convienne  d'y 


NATIONAL  LIBRARY.  125 

revenir  sans  autre  pretension  que  celle  de  simples  citoyens,  61ec- 
teurs  et  eligibles. 

"  Le  droit  commun  est  devenu  le  droit  absolu  ;  il  n'admet  pas 
d'exceptions. 

"  Les  Monarchistes  ont  tue  la  Monarchic  en  France  :  les  fusio- 
nistes  Font  enterree." 

The  limitations  of  time  and  space,  the  inexorable  condi- 
tions to  which  he  is  subjected  by  his  body  and  his  watch  pinch 
the  stranger,  who  wishes  to  crowd  into  one  Paris  day  a  great 
variety  of  objects  and  sensations.  He  must  hurry  and  be  content 
with  glimpses.  But  the  deathless  mind  has  no  such  limitations. 
In  a  second  it  sweeps  through  aeons,  or  embraces  the  orbits  of  si- 
derial  systems.  Within  the  compass  of  a  few  minutes,  while  you 
are  passing  through  a  Church  or  a  Museum,  long  chapters  of 
thought  can  write  themselves  upon  the  brain.  I  shall  not  so 
abuse  the  indulgence  of  the  reader,  who  permits  me  to  lead  him 
about  the  Capital  of  France,  as  to  transcribe  the  half  of  this 
writing.  Were  I  to  do  so,  instead  of  an  hour, — he  would  need  a 
day  to  read  "  a  day  in  Paris."  I  spare  him. 

Among  the  cardinal  objects  of  Paris,  one  of  the  nearest  to  our 
lodgings  is  the  National  Library,  in  the  rue  Richelieu,  the  largest 
in  the  world,  containing  more  than  a  million  of  volumes.  We 
arrive  just  as  the  guardians  are  throwing  open  its  immense 
galleries  at  ten. 

A  vast  compact  collection  of  books  is  a  table  of  contents  of  the 
world  past  and  present,  an  epitome  of  human  kind  up  to  the  living 
hour.  What  our  predecessors  on  the  globe  have  thought  and 
done  is  here  registered.  Manuscripts,  Syriac,  Coptic,  Arabic, 
fill  any  chasms  that  the  briarean  printing-press  has  not  yet  bridged 
over.  From  these  shelves,  men  and  nations  speak  and  tell  their 
story.  Around  you  is  a  chronicle  of  your  race.  Those  tribes 
whose  nature  and  speech  were  too  feeble  to  utter  themselves  in 
books,  have  been  reported  by  their  stronger  kin. 


126  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

Books  denote  intellectual  wants  satisfied ;  they  are  clasps 
wrought  by  culture  to  strengthen  itself;  they  are  testimonials  of 
national  character ;  they  measure  the  degree  of  human  vitality  in 
a  people.  Those  who  have  the  best  books  will  be  found  to  be  at 
the  top  of  the  scale,  those  who  have  none  at  the  bottom.  Recall 
the  history  of  Nations,  and  survey  a  present  map  of  the  globe. 
Books  are  grains  of  spiritual  wheat ;  I  mean  good  books,  such  as 
have  the  life  of  fresh  honest  thought  in  them.  A  good  library  is 
a  granary  of  thoughts  j  it  stores  up  aliment  for  the  mind  j  it  pre- 
serves seed  from  all  ages  and  countries,  and,  like  the  wheat  dis- 
covered in  the  tombs  of  Egypt,  this  seed  keeps  its  life  for  thou- 
sands of  years,  and  if  planted  fructifies. 

The  sowing  is  here  done  broadcast,  for  in  going  the  round  of 
these  gigantic  halls  we  come  upon  one  where,  at  a  long  table,  sit 
a  multitude  of  silent  readers.  Whoever  wishes  a  book  writes  its 
name  on  a  slip  of  paper.  This  the  Librarian  hands  to  one  of  his 
assistants,  who  perhaps  has  to  walk  through  a  furlong  of  books  to 
fetch  it.  The  volumes  delivered  to  him  the  applicant  must  use 
in  the  library  ;  he  is  not  permitted  to  take  them  away. 

Like  a  patriarch  amidst  his  progeny,  in  the  centre  of  one  of 
the  great  halls,  sits  in  permanent  presidence,  Voltaire, — Voltaire 
the  skeptical,  the  witty,  the  versatile,  the  voluminous.  The  statue 
is  a  copy  in  plaster  bronzed  of  that  marvel  of  portrait-sculpture 
in  the  Theatre  Francais,  by  Houdon.  The  aged  face  sparkles 
with  shrewdness.  It  is  the  head  and  face  not  of  the  wisest  but  of 
the  most  knowing  of  men.  The  countenance  is  that  as  of  a  man 
who  had  never  wept.  But  in  this  it  wrongs  Voltaire  :  he  was  not 
without  sympathy  and  kindliness.  Nor  was  he,  like  Talleyrand, 
a  man  who  believed  in  nothing  but  himself,  and  in  his  best  mo- 
ments doubted  even  that.  Priests,  whom  his  reason  unmasked 
and  his  wit  lashed,  have  done  their  worst  to  blacken  Voltaire. 
With  priests, — who  live  by  creeds  and  credulity, — the  direst 
offence  is  skepticism.  But  skepticism  is  never  an  original  dis- 


PALAIS   ROYAL.  127 

ease  ;  it  is  a  reaction  against  hypocrisy  and  false  belief.  Skepti- 
cism is  the  forerunner  of  a  better  belief,  for  men  are  by  nature 
believers,  and  doubts  are  the  braces  of  faith.  The  man  who  has 
never  doubted  is  apt  to  be  a  shallow  believer.  To  the  generation 
that  doubted  with  Voltaire  has  succeeded  a  generation,  which, 
strengthened  by  the  antecedent  purgation  through  doubt,  now  be- 
lieves with  Beranger  and  with  Lammenais,  and  with  him  who  is 
the  deepest  and  broadest  believer  and  the  most  far-seeing  man  of 
his  country  and  age,  with  Fourier,  who  came  to  harmonize  the 
heart  of  man  with  the  thought  of  God. 

Turning  to  the  left  as  we  issue  into  the  rue  Richelieu, 

through  the  massive  black  portal  of  the  Library,  we  soon  cross 
the  rue  neuve  des  Petits  Champs,  and  in  a  few  paces  come  upon 
a  short  passage,  by  help  of  which,  after  descending  a  flight  of 
stone  steps,  we  suddenly  find  ourselves  under  an  arched,  open 
corridor,  that  encloses  an  oblong  quadrangle,  seven  hundred  feet 
by  three  hundred,  planted  with  rows  of  truncated  lime-trees,  with 
grass-plots  and  flower-beds,  fountains  and  statues  in  the  centre. 
All  round  this  immense  corridor  of  two  thousand  feet  are  shops, 
and  above  it  is  one  immense  edifice,  internally  partitioned,  hori- 
zontally as  well  as  vertically,  into  hundreds  of  tenements,  and  is 
externally  of  uniform  and  florid  architecture,  with  fluted  pilasters 
and  Corinthian  capitals,  and  elaborate  details  of  ornament.  This 
is  the  Palais  Royal,  a  compendium  of  the  great  Capital  in  whose 
midst  it  stands — a  mammoth  warehouse  of  the  necessaries  and 
the  luxuries,  the  solids  and  the  prettinesses,  the  grossnesses  and 
the  refinements  of  civilization.  Here  you  may  equip  yourself  for 
a  journey  or  a  ball ;  furnish  a  house  or  a  trunk  ;  fill  your  library 
or  your  larder ;  pass  from  the  taciturn  reading-room  to  the  chat- 
tering Estaminet,  to  quicken  time's  pace  by  a  game  of  billiards 
with  Charles  or  Romain  ;  wash  down  a  twenty  franc  dinner  with 
a  bottle  ofClos  Vougeot  at  the  Trois  Freres,  or  a  two  franc  one 
with  thin  Bordeaux  at  Richard's  hard  by  ;  mount  into  the  alti- 


128  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

tudes  of  Art  with  Rachel,  or  have  Levassor  help  you  digest  your 
dinner  with  his  side-shaking  fun. 

At  this  hour  and  season  the  spring-green  leaves  of  the  dwarfed 
lime-trees,  which  contrast  harmoniously  with  their  clean  black 
branches,  waste  on  the  smooth  gravel  their  rectilinear  shade,  not 
yet  prized  by  the  gossipping  nurses,  and  less  by  the  children  that 
run  among  the  legs  of  elderly  loungers,  who  come  to  this  sprightly 
seclusion,  this  palatial  patch  of  French  rus  in  urbe,  to  let  indo- 
lence float  them  an  hour  or  two  down  Time's  lethean  stream. 

Besides  the  wealthy  idle,  there  are  in  Paris  thousands  of  people 
who,  on  incomes  of  from  two  hundred  to  five  hundred  dollars, 
lead  a  life  of  absolute  unproductiveness.  To  this  class,  time  is 
all  pastime.  Their  meals  are  their  occupations.  For  their  attic 
lodgings,  and  other  scant  indispensables,  they  grudgingly  pay 
their  few  francs  daily.  This  is  all  they  give  ;  they  are  takers, 
not  givers.  They  live  on  the  community  ;  that  is,  on  what  is 
common  and  open  to  all,  which  in  Paris  is  so  lively  and  various, 
that  to  the  vacant  it  is  as  good  as  a  fat  property.  In  good  weather 
they  haunt  the  Boulevards  and  public  gardens  and  gratis  specta- 
cles ;  in  bad,  the  cafes,  estaminets,  auctions,  passages,  bazaars. 
Their  personal  relations  are  few.  The  responsibilities  fed  by  the 
affections,  the  duties  of  worker,  citizen,  and  friend,  from  these  they 
emancipate  themselves  as  fully  as  may  be,  in  order  to  reduce 
existence  to  the  minimum  of  care.  This  they  call  freedom,  and 
in  sadness  we  allow,  that  they  are  not  wholly  wrong ;  for  under 
the  civilized  regime,  such  falseness  is  there  in  all  relations,  that 
he  who  has  the  fewest  is  the  freest.  What  a  freedom  !  obtained 
by  personal  isolation  and  moral  micrification. 

In  five  minutes  we  alight  at  the  Church  of  St.  Germain 

VAuxerrois.  This  church  has  a  dismal  celebrity.  From  its  bel- 
fry it  was  that  on  the  23d  of  August,  1572,  was  given  the  signal 
for  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  and  all  through  that  awful 
night  its  bell  tolled.  Was  it  in  penitence,  or  in  triumph  ?  The 


SERVICES  OF  A  CHURCH.  129 

Romish  Church  professes  to  be  unchangeable.  Are  its  priests 
then  ready  to  re-commit  that  crime  for  which  earth  has  no  name  ? 
Did  the  executioners  of  that  sacerdotal  sentence  afterwards  bring 
their  doings  of  that  night  to  the  confessional  ?  Was  the  fulness 
of  the  absolution  and  its  unction  in  proportion  to  the  number  of 
victims  reported  ?  Good  God !  that  these  godless  impostors 
should  still  thrive  !  that  men  who  have  had  opportunities  and 
culture,  men  even  of  manly  natures,  should  still  submit  them- 
selves,  their  feelings  and  their  acts,  to  the  revision  of  this  histri- 
onic corporation  ! — But  we  will  not  stop  longer  on  the  threshold, 
to  be  embittered  by  the  terrific  retrospection,  and  the  angry 
thoughts  it  awakens. 

Within,  two  funeral  services  are  going  on  ;  one  in  the  middle 
of  the  church  for  a  child,  the  other  in  a  side  chapel  for  an  adult, 
and,  from  the  tranquil  acquiescent  mien  of  the  mourners,  appa- 
rently, aged  person.  But  from  the  group  in  the  centre  are  heard 
the  sobs  of  that  sharp  grief  which  cuts  into  the  heart  of  the  mother, 
and  makes  there  a  wound  that  never  fully  heals.  Violence  has 
been  done,  hence  life-quaking  sorrow ;  for  early  death,  or  death 
from  any  cause  but  decay,  is  against  the  normal  law  of  nature. 
The  painless  death  of  the  aged  from  exhaustion  is  the  only  natu- 
ral death — painless  to  the  departed,  and  painless,  though  sad,  to 
the  survivors. 

In  another  recess  an  elderly  priest  is  teaching  the  catechism  to 
a  large  class  of  boys.  French  children  in  the  earliest  years  are 
mostly  not  beautiful ;  they  want  the  unconscious,  untainted,  self- 
less look,  which,  with  a  rosy  transparent  plumpness,  makes  cher- 
ubs of  their  little  neighbors  across  the  Channel ;  but  among  these 
boys,  who  were  from  ten  to  fourteen,  there  was  much  beauty. 
As  we  paused  for  a  moment,  the  priest  asked  one  of  them  to  ex- 
plain the  mystery  of  the  incarnation  !  The  boy  made  answer 
according  to  the  words  of  the  book. 

In  a  populous  city  like  Paris,  where  there  are  few  churches, 

6* 


130  SCENES   AND   THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

and  where  so  many  thousands  seldom  visit  them,  except  for  the 
great  sacraments,  it  were  quite  possible  to  hit  upon  an  hour  when, 
besides  a  funeral,  there  should  be  a  marriage  and  a  christening. 
As  we  had  not  this  fortune,  I  almost  regretted  not  to  possess  the 
gift  that  some  reporters  have,  of  eking  out  with  inventions  the 
short-comings  of  reality.  Yet  it  was  fitting  that  for  this  church, 
the  image  of  death  should  stand  alone  in  the  memory. 

Coming  out,  we  front  the  east  facade  of  the  Louvre,  and 

on  the  globe  we  could  not  stand  on  a  spot  from  which  to  behold  a 
grander  architectural  mass.  A  colonnade  nearly  two  hundred 
yards  long,  of  coupled  Corinthian  columns,  each  one  thirty-eight 
feet  high,  supported  on  a  plain  basement  thirty  feet  high,  with  a 
gallery  behind  pierced  with  windows  and  enriched  with  pilasters 
and  festoons.  But  here,  as  in  all  great  architectural  creations, 
the  enduring  grandeur  and  beauty  spring  from  the  proportions. 
Were  the  basement  a  few  feet  lower,  or  the  pairs  of  columns  fur- 
ther  apart,  or  the  entablature  less  .massive,  or  the  central  and 
lateral  projections  more  prominent,  the  harmony  would  be  broken, 
and  this  unique  facade  would  have  missed  much  of  its  renown. 
Possibly  some  of  the  details  might  be  improved.  The  arching  of 
the  windows  in  the  basement,  the  want  of  elevation  in  those  above, 
the  unmeaningness  of  the  festoons  over  each  upper  window,  if 
these  are  defects, — which  I  hardly  presume  to  say  they  are, — 
they  are  merged  in  the  splendor  of  effect  produced  by  excellence 
of  proportion  among  such  gigantic  constituents. 

Those  great  Greeks  !  what  a  plastic  genius,  what  a  clear  soul 
for  beauty,  what  an  infallible  inward  sense  of  form  they  had. 
Look  at  a  Corinthian  column,  with  its  wrought  base,  its  light 
fluted  shaft,  springing  with  a  graceful  strength  up  to  its  acanthine 
capital,  like  an  elastic  Flora  bearing  a  basket  of  flowers  above  her 
head, — what  a  creation  it  is !  Imperishable  from  its  beauty,  it  is 
an  ornament  to  the  earth  forever. 

The  Quays  are  one  of  the  great  features  of  Paris.   Herein 


" 


181 


she  high  overrides  her  mightier  EngflH^Jfejt^^Wtl  miles  of 
quay,  —  five  on  each  side  of  the  river,  —  of  from  fifty  to  eighty  feet 
wide,  paved,  lighted,  fenced  by  stone  balustrades,  one  endless 
terrace  overlooking  the  Seine,  the  one  side  communicating  with 
the  other  by  a  dozen  bridges,  —  it  is  a  magnificence  traversing  the 
city,  such  as  no  other  city  in  the  world  can  show. 

Ascending  the  quays  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river,  we  cross 
the  Pont  Neuf  to  the  island,  where  is  the  original  city,  the  pri- 
mary centre,  round  which  by  successive  radiations  has  grown  in 
the  course  of  more  than  a  dozen  centuries,  this  vast  metropolis. 
Passing  by  the  Palais  de  Justice,  we  alight  in  front  of  the  huge 
truncated  towers  of  Notre  Dame,  the  foundations  of  which  were 
laid  more  than  eight  hundred  years  ago. 

Seldom  is  there  in  architecture  a  transmission  of  life  from  part 
to  part,  a  quick  circulation  of  vitality  through  the  members,  melt- 
ing them  into  a  whole.  The  great  law  of  unity,  predominant  and 
transparent  in  every  work  of  Nature,  and  therefore  imperative  in 
Art,  is  from  weakness  seldom  fulfilled  in  its  severity.  Now  the 
imposing  front  of  the  famous  old  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame,  is  not 
enough  penetrated  by  this  unifying  essence.  The  parts  lie  one 
above  the  other  strata-wise.  It  cannot  be  called  heavy,  yet  it 
presses  too  much  on  the  earth.  The  best  architecture  is  always 
buoyant,  lifting  itself  up  with  an  intrinsic  nervousness,  a  self- 
sustainment,  infused  by  beauty  ;  for  beauty  has  the  virtue  to 
spiritualize  the  bulkiest  mass. 

And  the  exterior  is  the  best  of  it.  The  interior  is  in  its  ensemble 
less  inspired.  Those  stout  columns,  besides  being  not  Gothic,  are 
grossly  prosaic.  Instead  of  mounting  up  with  alacrity  to  meet  the 
down-stooped  roof,  and  carrying  it  without  sign  of  effort,  they  look 
overladen,  and  as  though  they  complained  of  their  task.  But  here 
in  the  transepts  is  a  compensating  pomp,  two  circular  painted 
windows,  opposite  the  one  to  the  other,  and  each  fifty  feet  in  diam- 
eter. They  are  like  the  magnification  of  a  brilliant  kaleidoscope. 


132  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

These  Gothic  cathedrals  are  sublime  efforts  made  in  the  middle 
ages,  to  embrace  God  with  the  uplifted  arms  of  mighty  Archi- 
tecture. 

Crossing  over  to  the  left  bank  of  the  river,  we  traverse 

part  of  the  quartier  Latin  to  reach  the  Luxembourg.  We  have 
time  but  for  a  short  turn  in  its  spacious,  shady,  hospitable  garden, 
from  which  we  hasten  up  to  the  gallery  of  living  French  painters. 

With  ever  new  zest  one  re-beholds  that  great  picture  of  Couture, 
Les  Remains  de  la  Decadence.  A  capital  excellence  of  this  mas- 
terpiece is,  that  it  illustrates  and  demonstrates  the  limitation  of 
the  Arts.  Each  art  has  its  domain  within  which  it  is  sovereign, 
beyond  which  it  is  uncrowned.  Never  did  artist  plant  himself 
more  firmly  in  the  very  centre  of  his  rightful  dominion  than  does 
Couture  in  this  picture.  Written  poetry,  sculpture,  music,  could 
not  with  their  utmost  attainment,  singly  or  united,  impress  upon 
the  mind  an  image  of  the  decline  of  Rome,  so  vivid,  so  full,  so 
convincing,  as  is  here  done  on  canvass  in  a  single  view. — A  Ro- 
man orgie,  in  a  lofty  banquet-hall  of  cool  Grecian  architecture ; 
men  and  women  reclining,  standing,  sitting,  some  with  goblets  in 
hand ;  and  over  all  the  languor  of  an  irremediable  satiety.  In 
that  large,  graceful,  recumbent,  central,  female  figure,  what 
fallen  majesty,  what  spent  power,  what  a  gigantic  lassitude  !  in 
those  big  dark  orbs  what  a  depth  of  fixed  sadness  !  Never  more 
can  that  countenance  beam  with  joy.  Here  a  male  figure  has 
climbed  up  to  a  niche  and  offers  wine  to  a  statue ;  what  a  fine 
stroke  of  Art  to  express  utter  satiation.  On  the  opposite  side,  a 
woman  is  tearing  her  hair,  as  if  suddenly  seized  with  madness, 
and  nobody  heeds  her.  In  the  distant  background,  a  group  are 
tearing  one  another.  Here  there  is  a  show  of  dalliance,  but  lack- 
ing the  sting  of  passion.  In  the  love  there  is  no  fire,  no  flavor  in 
the  wine,  nor  in  the  grapes  any  slaking  coolness.  Palate  and 
feeling,  body  and  soul,  all  is  blase,  consumed  by  a  heat  which 
warms  not.  Those  two  spectators  in  the  corner,  standing  indig- 


CHRISTIANITY  DESTROYS   DESPOTISM.  138 

nant,  like  Brutus  and  Cassius  come  back,  they  frown  in  vain. 
Mighty  Rome  is  fallen  forever.  The  Latin  civilization  is  drained 
to  the  bottom,  and  here  are  the  putrid  lees.  It  had  not  the  soul 
of  the  highest  life.  The  spiritual  element,  the  higher  human, 
the  vivacious  and  immortal,  mingled  in  it  too  feebly  to  project  it 
towards  an  indefinite  progression.  Its  great  animal  intellectual 
vigor,  has  compassed  the  widest  orbit  yet  permitted  to  a  nation. 
Force  has  run  its  full  circle,  beginning  in  rude  strength,  and  end- 
ing, naturally,  in  voluptuousness. 

But  already,  as  Rome  passed  her  zenith,  in  the  East  had  been 
laid  the  foundations  of  a  power,  on  whose  immeasurable  path  was 
to  be  borne,  not  a  nation,  but  a  host  of  nations,  and  not  nations 
merely,  but  better  than  nations,  MAN.  Civilized  Paganism  was 
the  consecration  of  the  State  ;  Christianity  is  the  consecration  of 
man.  In  Greece  and  Rome  man  was  subordinated  to  the  State  ; 
the  more  the  law  of  Christ  is  fulfilled,  the  more  the  State  is  sub- 
ordinated to  man.  The  greater  the  concentration  and  exercise 
of  power  in  the  State,  the  smaller  is  man.  When  the  State  is  all 
and  man  nothing,  as  under  Despotism,  the  instrument  rules  its 
maker,  and  belittles  him  ;  for  the  State  is  of  man,  and  man  is  of 
God.  When  Christianity  grows  strong,  it  strengthens  man,  and 
melts  the  bonds  of  the  State.  The  freest  nation  must  be  the  most 
Christian.  The  most  unchristian  power  in  Christendom  is  the 
Papacy. 

The  thoughts  kindled  by  this  great  picture  carry  us  away  from 
the  picture  itself.  Considering  the  almost  unique  felicity  of  the 
subject,  the  breadth  of  its  purport,  the  intellectual  beauty  of  its 
composition,  the  masterly  richness  of  the  execution,  the  high  un- 
conscious moral  there  is  in  it,  this  picture  should  rank  as  one  of 
the  greatest  works  of  art  in  Europe.  It  is  a  canvas-compendium 
of  Roman  history.  Study  it,  and  save  yourself  the  trouble  of 
reading  Gibbon. 

The  sun  has  passed  the  meridian,  and  will  soon  be  hur- 


1S4  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

rying  away  from  us  :  we  must  hasten  after  him. — Coachman, 
drive  as  fast  as  safety  and  the  police  will  let  you.  From  the  nar- 
row, damp  streets  of  this  side  the  river,  one  issues  upon  the  quays 
with  a  feeling  of  disenthralment.  Turning  to  the  left  we  descend 
the  left  bank.  In  view  on  the  opposite  shore  are,  the  Louvre,  its 
long  gallery,  the  Palace,  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries.  On  this 
side  we  drive  along,  first  the  learned  quays  Malaquais  and  Vol- 
taire, with  their  book-stalls  and  print-shops,  and  the  house  where 
Voltaire  died,  then  the  Quay  D'Orsay,  with  its  imposing  edifices 
and  patrician  tranquillity.  Now  are  we  crossing  the  Pont  de  la 
Concorde,  from  which  the  eye  ranges  up  the  river  to  be  stopped 
two  miles  off  by  the  towers  of  Notre  Dame,  and  down,  by  distant 
foliage,  then  across  to  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  with  its  neigh- 
boring grandeurs.  Flanked  on  the  right  by  the  massy  foliage  of 
the  Tuileries,  and  on  the  left  by  Elyseean  vistas  under  broken 
shade  ;  with  its  two  pompous  fountains  spouting  their  large  ex- 
panse of  clear,  noisy  water,  between  them  the  Obelisk  of  Luxor, 
looking  in  its  solemn  singleness  like  a  mourner  at  a  wedding  ; 
with  its  gay,  bronze-gilt  lamp-columns  and  bold  statuary  and  in- 
cessant roll  and  glitter  of  carriages,  and  its  magnificent  environ- 
ment, the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  on  every  sunny  day  like  this, 
wears  a  festal  air.  Now  we  are  close  upon  the  Madeleine,  belted 
by  more  than  fifty  Corinthian  columns,  each  one  fifty  feet  high. 
For  months  this  architectural  paragon  has  been  to  me  a  daily  joy  ; 
for,  not  a  day  but  I  pass  it  more  than  once,  and  never  without 
fresh  admiration  and  thankfulness.  I  will  presume  upon  the 
privilege  of  having  gazed  at  it  many  hundred  times  to  find  one 
fault  in  it.  The  pediment  is  not  purely  Grecian,  but  somewhat 
Roman,  that  is,  a  little  too  high.  Were  there  a  mile  up  the  Bou- 
levards a  large  specimen  of  pure  Gothic,  what  termini  there  were 
to  the  gayest  walk  in  Europe. 

We  reach  the  rue  du  Helder  at  one,  most  grateful  for  an  hour's 


THE  PHALANSTERIANS.  135 

rest,  which  is  made  more  refreshing  by  help  of  a  mutton-chop  and 
French  roll  for  lunch. 

Jt  is  half-past  two  when  I  find  myself  again  on  the  other 

side  of  the  river,  and  alighting  at  the  corner  of  the  Quay  Vol- 
taire, I  walk  into  the  rue  de  Beaune.  No.  2  is  the  first  gate-way 
on  the  right,  entering  the  which  I  cross  a  broad  court,  ascend  a 
few  steps  to  the  large  open  portal,  turn  to  the  right,  and  having 
passed  through  two  doors  in  succession,  have  before  me  in  a  spa- 
cious, shelf-furnished  room,  several  clerks,  silently  at  work  be- 
hind the  wire  netting  that  in  French  offices  separates  the  visitor 
from  the  inmates.  Invading  this  precinct,  with  interchange  of 
salutation  with  the  occupants,  I  issue  out  at  the  opposite  angle, 
and  traversing  a  short,  dark  passage,  enter  by  a  small  door  an- 
other capacious  room  with  tall  windows  to  the  ground  looking  on 
a  garden.  At  an  enormous  oval  table  in  the  middle  of  the  room, 
covered  with  green  baize  and  bestrown  with  newspapers,  two 
bearded  men  are  writing,  and  another  is  reading  a  journal,  a  sofa 
on  one  side  is  possessed  in  its  full  length  by  a  recumbent  fourth, 
while  two  or  three  others,  seated  before  the  coal  embers  of  the 
large  fire-place,  are  smoking  short  clay  pipes.  Conversation  is 
fitful,  now  and  then  rising  for  a  few  moments  into  earnest  con- 
tinuity. This  is  the  sanctum  of  the  writers  for  the  Democratic 
Pacifique,  and  the  rendezvous  of  the  Phalansterians.  On  the 
mantel-piece  is  a  bust  of  Fourier. 

These  men  believe  in  a  new  social  order,  to  be  founded  on  ab- 
solute justice  ;  and  they  have  dedicated  themselves  to  the  expo- 
sition of  the  laws  whereby  it  is  to  be  organized.  Convictions  of 
the  present  possibility  of  a  more  human  and  a  more  divine  con- 
dition for  man,  contrasted  with  which  the  best  he  has  yet  had  is 
but  vanity  and  blight,  these  are  the  staple  of  their  life.  They 
live  in  a  future,  built  of  ideas  originated  by  thoughtful,  sympa- 
thizing genius.  They  themselves  are  not  raised  above  their  fel- 
lows by  brilliancy  of  parts  or  purity  of  conduct ;  their  distinction 


186  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

is,  that,  whether  by  the  fortune  of  association,  or  by  intellec- 
tual sympathy,  or  by  aesthetic  susceptibility,  they  have  accept- 
ed the  discoveries  of  Fourier.  Providence  provides  that  the 
good  seed  which  she  generates  shall  some  of  it  light  on  soil 
where  it  can  grow  and  fructify.  They  are  not  high  on  the  so- 
cial scale,  but  from  the  eminence  of  new  truth  they  look  calmly 
down  upon  the  turmoil  which  men  now  call  society.  In  the 
world's  goods  they  are  poor,  but  the  incommensurable  wealth  of 
world-moulding  ideas  is  theirs ;  and  thus  enriched,  they  already 
enjoy  an  inward  well-being,  which  to  flaunting  grandees  and  be- 
dizened officials,  who  think  they  despise  them,  were  an  incredible 
Utopia. 

The  bust  of  Fourier  is  unhappily  not  faithful.  The  artist  has 
had  the  imbecile  arrogance  to  alter  God's  work  :  he  thought  to 
improve  it !  He  has  "  idealized"  by  squaring,  enlarging,  em- 
boldening it ;  that  is,  he  has  annihilated  Fourier,  and  instead  of 
a  transcript  from  the  original  head,  he  has  given  us  a  big,  hol- 
low, no-head.  But  the  disciples  of  Fourier  possess  a  cast  from 
his  cranium  after  death.  This  indicates  a  nature  more  distin- 
guished for  the  completeness  and  harmony  of  its  organization, 
than  for  any  one-sided  intellectual  or  affective  superiority.  I 
gazed  at  it  as  I  had  at  his  simple  tomb  in  the  cemetery  of  Mont- 
martre,  with  deep  emotion  ;  for  to  this  man  I  acknowledge  my- 
self to  be  under  unspeakable  obligations.  He  has  ratified  and 
enlightened  my  best  intuitions  ;  he  has  intellectualized  my  as- 
pirations into  scientific  truths.  His  discoveries  and  deductions 
are  new  revelations  of  the  greatness  and  goodness  of  God,  and 
of  the  cognate  power  and  splendor  of  man.  "Les  attractions 
sont  proportionelles  aux  destinees  ;" — "  La  Serie  distribue  les  har- 
monies."* Th  se  two  sublime  formulas,  into  which  Fourier  has 
condensed  the  essence  of  his  doctrine,  and  which  prefigure  the 

*  Attractions  are  proportionate  to  destinies  ;— the  Series  distributes  the 
harmonies. 


THE  TUILERIES  GARDENS.  137 

coming  glorified  condition  of  humanity,  are  as  yet  to  the  mul- 
titude cabalistic  and  enigmatical,  and  to  the  Pharisees  what  were, 
and  continue  to  be  to  them  the  words  of  Jesus,  "  Love  thy  neigh- 
bor as  thyself," — "  Be  ye  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  which  is 
in  Heaven  is  perfect ;"  the  which  sublime  exhortations- are  still 
an  ideal  goal,  shining  with  a  star-like  brilliancy,  and  a  star-like 
remoteness,  through  the  night  of  human  enmities  and  imperfec- 
tions. The  formulas  of  Fourier  are  the  vehicle  wherein  this 
high  ideal  shall  descend  to  the  earth,  and  become  the  reality  of 
daily  life. 

Re-crossing  the  Seine  by  the  Pont  National,  I  enter  the 

Tuileries  Gardens.  Trees  and  turf  are  freshly  robed  in  the 
clear,  clean  verdure  of  spring.  On  coming  into  these  gardens 
one  gains  a  sense  of  freedom.  The  sudden  salutation  of  Nature 
in  mid-urban  closeness  were  enough  for  this,  and  Art  enlarges 
the  sensation  by  beautifying  the  welcome  of  Nature  with  her 
own  graceful  courtesy.  With  the  leaves  and  flower-buds  chil- 
dren have  come  back.  The  broad  alley  on  the  rue  Rivoli  is 
glittering  with  these  soul-buds,  and  through  the  joyous,  busy 
swarm  one  moves  slowly,  imbibing  spiritual  peace  from  celestial 
emanations. 

Quitting  the  Garden  by  the  gate  opposite  the  arch-flanked  rue 
Castiliogne,  in  five  minutes  I  am  in  the  rue  Duphot,  which  ascends 
from  that  of  St.  Honore  to  the  Boulevard  des  Capucines.  At  No. 
12  I  pass  under  a  solid  gateway  over  which  is  inscribed,  Ecole 
d' 'Equitation,  where  besides  the  best  schooling  in  horsemanship  in 
a  spacious  covered  quadrangle,  good  well-equipt  saddle-horses 
are  to  be  had  by  the  month  or  day.  In  a  few  minutes  I  have 
under  me  a  clean-limbed  English  blood  mare,  in  full  trot  up  the 
broad  avenue  of  the  Champs  Elysees.  A  ride  on  a  mettled  horse 
who  enjoys  his  own  springy  motion,  is  a  cure  for  many  of  the 
minor  ills  of  life. 

The  sight  cannot  escape  the  gigantic  Triumphal  Arch  which 


138  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

crowns  the  eminence  at  the  head  of  this  noble  avenue, — by  far 
the  most  massive  specimen  in  Europe  of  a  vain  and  arrogant 
class  of  edifice,  and  a  sample  of  the  handiwork  of  Napoleon,  who 
was  so  great  in  the  smaller,  the  material  sublime,  and  so  small 
in  the  greater,  the  moral  sublime.  Two  centuries  hence  this 
monument  of  military  achievements  will  by  the  thoughtful  of 
that  period  be  interpreted  as  a  naif  record, — elaborately  chiselled 
upon  the  tablet  of  History  by  the  "  Great  Captain  of  the  age," — 
of  the  semi-barbarism  of  the  nineteenth  century,  whereof  him- 
self was  the  most  shining  exemplification. 

Leaving  this  monster*  on  the  right,  I  join  the  current  which, 
on  the  cushioned  seats  of  coach  or  saddle,  sets  at  this  hour  up 
the  avenue  of  St.  Cloud  towards  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  This 
sandy  area,  about  seven  miles  in  circuit,  covered  for  the  most 
part  by  a  stunted  growth,  chiefly  of  oaks  and  birch,  is  inter- 
sected throughout  by  numerous  straight  avenues  that  run  across 
from  edge  to  edge  and  cut  one  another  at  all  angles.  There  is 
but  one  meandering  path,  running  through  the  middle,  and  much 
frequented  by  equestrians.  This  is  a  pleasure-ground  for  that 
portion  of  Parisian  idlers  who  can  afford  the  daily  luxury  of 
horses.  On  Sundays  all  the  hackney-carriages  of  Paris  are  in 
request  to  transport  thither  a  fraction  of  the  Bourgeoisie.  But 
even  hacks  are  beyond  the  reach  of  the  mechanical  and  other 
hard-working  classes.  Those  on  whose  broad,  steadfast  labor 
Society  rests  as  her  foundation,  she  dooms  to  exclusion  even  from 
the  meagre  relaxations  which  in  her  penury  she  doles  out.  In 
her  diabolic  perversity  she  honors  most  the  least  creative,  those 
who  consume  much  and  produce  nothing. 

Here  comes,  on  a  stout  sleek  horse,  a  stout  well-tailored  man, 
with  groom  to  match.  His  square  fleshy  face  is  sallow,  his  eye 
egotistic  and  unhappy.  He  looks  like  a  rich  sensualist  hopelessly 

*  It  cost  two  millions  of  dollars.  For  his  own  magnification,  the  Corsi- 
can  spent  the  gold  of  Frenchmen  as  lightly  as  their  blood. 


WOMEN  ON  HORSEBACK.  139 

riding  for  an  appetite.  In  passing,  he  scans  me,  as  though  by 
my  look  he  would  measure  my  worldly  importance.  In  a  but- 
ton-hole  of  his  coat  he  has  a  red  ribbon,  and  on  his  overcoat  the 
same.  Medals  round  the  necks  of  children  are  hateful  to  me. 
They  are  mostly  a  falsehood,  as  not  expressing  the  absolute  rela- 
tive merits  of  the  wearers  to  their  mates.  They  are  often  a  tes- 
timonial of  only  apparent  excellence  ;  they  are  always  a  bait  to 
draw  vanity  to  the  surface,  and  are  therefore  stimulants  of  a  mor- 
bid emulation.  They  demoralize  the  child.  On  an  adult  they 
are  disgusting,  a  stain  on  his  manhood,  a  badge  of  his  subjugation. 
A  man  to  have  a  bit  of  ribbon  pinned  to  his  breast  by  another 
man,  in  token  of  superiority  over  his  fellows  !  The  degradation 
is  the  deeper  for  its  unconsciousness.  The  tone  of  manliness  is 
so  chronically  lowered  on  the  Continent  of  Europe  by  the  habit 
of  submission  to  arbitrary  state-power,  that  men  of  honorable  na- 
ture are  insensible  to  the  dishonor  that  intrinsically  attaches  to 
the  wearing  of  these  "  decorations,"  of  which  they  therefore  make 
a  peacock-like  parade. 

The  joyous  music  of  young  women's  laughter,  accompanying  the 
martial  tramp  of  numerous  strong  hoofs  in  quick  gallop,  sounds 
close  through  the  leaves,  and  I  have  barely  time  to  yield  the 
better  half  of  the  road,  when  two  English  girls,  superbly  mounted, 
spring  by  at  an  Amazonian  speed.  Their  fun  seems  to  be  to 
distance  their  cavaliers,  who  strain  after  them  in  loud  glee.  "  I 
say,  Harry,"  cries  one  of  these,  evidently  enjoying  the  sport  al- 
most as  much  as  a  fox-chase,  "  this  is  devilish  hard  work." 
Four  women  out  of  five  that  one  meets  on  horseback  are  in  swift 
gallop.  Our  masculine  imaginations  make  the  steed  look  proud 
of  his  beautiful  burthen  ;  but  for  all  that,  I  pity  a  woman's  horse 

Adopting  the  feminine  pace,  from  the  centre  of  the  wood  I 
reach  the  Boulevards  in  thirty  minutes. 

It  is  past  five  when,  on  my  way  homeward  from  the 

stable,  I  cross  the  Place  Vendome,  where  is  another  of  Napo- 


140  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

Icon's  military  monuments,  the  column  made  of  brass  cannon 
taken  from  the  Austrians  and  Russians  in  1805,  surmounted  by 
a  colossal  statue  of  the  Imperial  Artilleryman.  This  column, 
like  most  of  its  author's  works,  is  an  imitation  of  a  bad  model. 
In  keeping  with  its  borrowed  form,  the  inscription  on  the  base, 
telling  why  it  was  erected,  is  in  Latin.  This  latinity  serves  a 
purpose ;  for  the  heartiest  admirers  of  the  monument  being  the 
ignorant,  the  unknown  tongue,  while  it  sharpens  their  sense  of 
their  own  ignorance,  will  quicken  their  admiration  ;  and  thus, 
Napoleon  is  elevated  in  proportion  to  their  abasement, — which  is 
just  as  it  should  be. 

Even  the  cultivated  are  somewhat  imposed  upon  by  Greek  or 
Latin  words.  These  have  a  big  oracular  look.  The  imagina- 
tion is  aroused  by  the  sight  of  them  ere  they  have  spoken.  A 
voice  sounding  across  twenty  centuries  must  be  freighted  with 
import.  Thus  we  are  apt  to  infuse  into  a  quotation  from  those 
languages  a  deeper  meaning  than  it  ever  had  ;  partly  too  because, 
no  one  ever  thoroughly  understanding  a  language  that  he  has  not 
learnt  through  the  ear  as  well  as  the  eye,  the  imagination,  with 
its  practised  self-confidence,  fills  up  the  void. 

Nothing  exhibits  more  flagrantly  the  injustice  inherent  in 

civilization  than  the  inequality  among  the  dinners  served  up  to 
her  children  ;  and  Paris,  by  the  superlative  degree  to  which  she 
stretches  this  inequality,  deserves  the  title  she  assumes  of  being 
the  capital  of  the  civilized  world.  Out  of  her  million  of  inhabi- 
tants, more  than  half  can  hardly  be  said  to  dine  at  all.  In  their 
dark,  unfurnished,  crowded,  infectious  lodgings,  or,  far  away 
from  these  wretched  homes,  resting  at  noon  from  work,  the  me- 
chanic and  day-laborer  appease  the  gross  cravings  of  hunger 
with  a  stinted  portion  of  the  plainest,  and  often  unwholesome, 
in  nutritious,  refuse  food.  The  solace,  physical  and  moral,  of  a 
leisurely,  abundant  repast, — due  to  every  man  by  Nature,  and 
which  Nature  is  willing  and  anxious  to  pay, — this  they  never 


DINERS.  Ul 

have.  When  two  out  of  three  of  all  who  are  buried  in  Paris 
are  so  at  public  cost,  and  one  third  die  in  the  hospitals,  no  especial 
skill  in  statistical  arithmetic  is  needed  to  estimate,  without  other 
data,  how  many  of  the  living  daily  uphold  life  by  what  may  be 
called  a  dinner ;  that  is  a  wholesome,  sufficing  meal.  When  I 
put  down  the  dinnerless  at  six  hundred  thousand,  I  am  within 
bounds;  and  scores  of  thousands  among  these  would  on  many 
days  utter  in  vain  the  prayer, "  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread." 

Of  the  remaining  four  hundred  thousand,  two  consist  of  small 
shop-keepers,  best-paid  mechanics,  clerks  at  low  salaries,  the  in- 
ferior class  of  artists,  and  others,  who  although  they  sit  down 
with  a  table-cloth,  and  even  napkins,  and  wine  (at  8  cents  a 
bottle),  live  in  the  daily  habit, — without  the  virtue, — of  obedience 
to  the  hygienic  prescription  of  rising  from  dinner  with  an  appetite. 

To  make  up  the  million  there  are  two  hundred  thousand  left, 
comprising  capitalists  who  live  on  their  incomes,  computed  to  be 
about  seven  per  cent,  of  the  whole  population  of  Paris,  the  weal- 
thier professional  and  literary  men  and  artists,  the  upper  Bour- 
geoisie, bankers,  traders  and  large  shop-keepers,  and  the  higher 
office-holders.  These  are  the  true  diners,  the  elect  (epicureanly 
speaking),  for  whom  capons  were  discovered  and  riz  de  veau  a  la 
jinanciere,  for  whom  turbot  and  oysters  of  Ostend  are  brought  in 
ice  from  the  sea,  and  truffles  from  the  south,  and  asparagus  and 
strawberries  are  forced,  and  Chambertin  and  Lafitte  exhale  their 
bouquet, — men  for  whom  cooks  are  educated  and  sauces  invented, 
whose  forks  come  from  Potosi  and  their  napkins  from  Silesia, 
men  who,  in  our  present  up-side-down  world,  stand  on  that  im- 
measurable height  up  to  which  their  brother-men  gaze  with  an 
intensely  human  longing,  and  an  intensely  unchristian  sensa- 
tion,— that  predominating  eminence,  where  they  are  so  far  above 
their  fellows  and  the  low  cares  of  bread-nourished  life,  that,  with- 
out fear  of  to-morrow,  they  can  to-day  spend  five  to  ten  francs, 
and  some  even  twenty  or  fifty,  for  a  dinner. 


142  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN   EUROPE. 

To  these  may  be  added  forty  or  fifty  thousand  strangers,  perma- 
nent and  transient ;  and  these  are  a  main  stay  of  the  Restaurants. 

Turning  to  the  left  as  I  issue  out  of  the  rue  du  Helder  towards 
six,  and  walking  up  the  Boulevard  des  Italiens  a  few  hundred 
yards,  I  am  surrounded  by  some  of  the  best  Restaurants  of  Paris, 
the  Cafe  de  Paris,  the  Maison  Doree,  the  Cafe  Riche,  and  on  the 
other  side,  the  Cafe  Anglais.  At  any  one  of  these,  at  any  hour, 
may  be  had  an  impromptu  dinner  of  succulent  substantials  or  of 
wholesome  delicacies,  the  first  course  of  which  will  be  served,  to 
a  man  in  a  hungry  hurry,  by  the  time  that  he  has  chosen  his 
wine.  To-day  I  disregard  their  solicitations,  and  entering  the 
rue  Richelieu  pass  under  the  gateway  of  No.  112,  ascend  a  short 
broad  stone  stairway,  and  opening  a  door  with  the  inscription 
Cercle  de  la  Conversation,  find  myself  in  the  apartment  that 
twenty  years  ago  was  widely  known  as  the  Frascati  gambling- 
rooms,  now  occupied  by  a  club,  many  of  whose  members  are 
men  of  letters  and  artists.  Here  every  day  at  six  a  table  is  laid 
for  twelve  or  fourteen  at  three  francs  and  a  half,  a  good  French 
bourgeois  dinner.  Here  at  a  private  concert,  opened  by  a  witty 
poem  from  the  spirituel  Mery,  I  have  heard  Godefroi  on  the  harp, 
Lacombe  on  the  piano,  and  Hermann  on  the  violin. 

This  Club  deserves  its  name,  being  the  only  one  in  Paris  where 
there  is  enough  of  geniality  and  of  intellectual  sociability  to  create 
the  need  of  cultivated  conversation.  In  tongue-skirmishing,  as  in 
that  on  the  field,  the  French  are  rapid  and  brilliant.  Their  minds 
lie  near  the  surface  ;  they  dart  in  and  out  with  a  sparkling  agility 
that  quickens  the  wits  of  all  listeners.  Just  after  Lamartine  had 
assumed  the  control  of  the  journal,  Le  Pays,  I  asked  at  dinner  a 
Legitimist  opposite  (the  Legitimists  all  hate  Lamartine)*  "  Est  ce 
que  Monsieur  Lamartine  a  achete  Le  Pays  ?"  Without  the 

*  "  Has  M.  Lamartine  bought  the  Pays  ?" — "  No,  the  Pays  has  bought 
M.  Laraartine." — "  Capefigue  has  a  great  depth  of  learning." — "  You  mean 
thickness." 


VANITY  OF  FRENCHMEN.  143 

pause  of  a  semi-colon  he  answered,  "  Non,  c'est  Le  Pays  qui  a 
achet6  M.  Lamartine."  Some  one  saying  of  Capefigue,  a  second- 
rate  historical  and  political  writer,  that  he  had  "  une  grande  pro- 
fondeur  de  connaissance." — "  Vous  voulez  dire  epaisseur,"  re- 
joined the  same  gentleman.  I  have  here  heard  a  French  poet 
conclude  a  graphic  picture  of  the  opening  of  the  battle  of  Trafal- 
gar by  declaring  that  the  signal  there  thrown  out  by  Nelson, — 
"  England  expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty," — was  one  of  the 
most  sublime  incidents  in  History.  I  have  heard  the  military  in- 
fallibility of  Napoleon  questioned  and  his  tactics  criticized,  and 
the  pre-eminence  of  Shakspeare  acknowledged.  The  French 
have  expanded  out  of  their  old  self-sufficiency ;  within  fifty  years 
they  have  learnt  much  from  their  neighbors  and  from  adversity ; 
from  the  latter  they  are  just  now  learning  very  fast. 

Frenchmen  are  charged  with  vanity ;  themselves  hardly  deny 
the  charge.  But  this  is  one  cause  of  their  cheerfulness,  and  of 
their  conversational  vivacity  ;  for  vanity  is  a  great  weaver  of 
cords  of  connection,  which,  if  not  the  strongest,  are  for  that  the 
more  numerous,  and  being  short  and  taught,  wonderfully  enliven 
superficial  personal  relations.  A  man  who  wishes  to  attract  your 
regards  upon  himself,  will  try  to  please.  That  vanity  does  not 
necessarily  make  a  man  agreeable,  and  is  often  a  large  ingre- 
dient in  a  thoroughly  selfish  character,  we  need  not  go  to  France 
to  learn.  The  impulse  whereof  it  is  the  overgrown  fruit,  has  no 
root  in  the  heart,  it  is  purely  self-seeking ;  nevertheless,  in  the 
composite  movement  of  associated  humanity,  it  plays  a  functional 
part  To  judge  of  the  heart  of  a  Frenchman,  or  other  man,  Paris 
is  not  a  fair  place,  for  nowhere  are  men  more  dwarfed  by  the 
pressure  of  the  heartless  motto  of  civilized  life — "  Every  man  for 
himself,  and  God  for  us  all."  This  is  another  testimony  in  favor 
of  the  claim  of  Paris  to  be  the  capital  of  civilization. 

It  is  not  far  from  eight,  when,  dinner  being  some  time  over,  I 
break  off  from  a  pleasant  after-chat,  and  take  leave  of  the  Club. 


144  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

*  I  was  introduced  to  this  Club  by  my  friend  Henry  S. 

Sanford,  Secretary  of  the  United  States  Legation  in  Paris.  An 
act  of  personal  kindness  I  should  not  thus  publish,  were  not  so 
many  of  his  countrymen  under  like  obligations  to  Mr.  Sanford, 
that  an  acknowledgment  of  them  here  seems  not  unbecoming,  and 
will,  I  am  sure,  be  acceptable  to  hundreds  of  Americans,  who  in 
the  past  three  or  four  years  have  profited  by  his  kindly  ser- 
vices. 

And  here  let  me  add  a  few  words  in  regard  to  what  is  expected 
of  American  Legations  in  Europe. 

Some  citizens  of  the  United  States  suppose,  that  their  citizen- 
ship entitles  them  in  Europe  to  the  acquaintance  and  attention  of 
the  United  States  envoys.  This  is  a  mistake.  A  diplomatic  agent 
is  a  public,  not  a  private  servant.  So  long  as  the  American 
traveller  has  no  complaint  against  the  public  authorities  for  ill- 
usage  (and  even  then  in  most  cases  the  Consul  is  the  proper  func- 
tionary of  whom  to  seek  redress),  his  claim  upon  the  Envoy  has 
no  stronger  basis  than  that  upon  other  American  residents  in 
foreign  capitals.  Equally  with  the  private  resident,  the  Envoy 
retains  the  right  of  expanding  or  contracting  his  circle  of  ac- 
quaintance, of  choosing  his  companions,  according  to  his  taste  or 
his  calculations.  If,  through  inclination  or  policy,  he  "  entertains," 
from  the  greater  facility  of  obtaining  introduction  to  a  public  than 
to  a  private  person,  a  large  number  of  his  countrymen  will  be  his 
guests.  But  his  hospitality  lies  within  the  bounds  of  his  reserved 
private  domain.  Whether  he  lives  "  like  a  hermit,"  or  "  like  a 
prince,"  is  of  no  concern  to  any  but  the  small  circle  to  whom  the 
closeness  or  the  openness  of  his  house,  is  a  private  loss  or  a  pri- 
vate profit.  Princely  living  was  wisely  not  included  in  the  dip- 
lomatic duties  of  American  ministers,  by  those  who  established  • 

*  These  remarks  on  American  Legations,  commenced  as  a  note,  have 
stretched  so  much  beyond  the  expected  length,  that  I  have  thought  it  best 
to  include  them  in  the  text. 


EUROPEAN  ENVOYS  IN  AMERICA.  145 

their  salaries,  and  Americans  have,  as  such,  no  claims  on  them 
for  balls,  dinners,  or  cards. 

What  they  have  a  right  to  expect  from  them  is,  that  not  only 
should  they  in  their  official  business,  which  is  little  and  intermit- 
tent,  maintain  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  United  States, — and 
this  they  do ;  but  that  also  in  their  daily  bearing,  their  habits, 
tone,  conversation,  that  is,  in  their  unofficial  conduct,  which  is 
much  and  not  intermittent,  they  should  uphold  the  principles  to 
which  the  United  States  owe  their  birth,  being,  and  matchless 
welfare,  the  principles  of  political  justice,  of  civic  equality,  of 
republican  freedom, — and  this  they  do  not. 

European  diplomatic  agents  in  America  set  an  example,  which 
American  diplomatic  agents  in  Europe  should  follow.  With 
rarely  an  exception,  the  representatives  of  foreign  governments 
resident  in  this  country,  are  unanimous  in  their  condemnation  of 
our  institutions,  and  of  all  our  democratic  principles  and  pro- 
cesses. These  feelings  of  distaste  and  of  oppugnancy  to  democ- 
racy are  not  concealed :  they  need  not  be.  These  gentlemen 
represent  monarchies  and  despotisms  :  their  governments  are  con- 
ducted on  principles  directly  hostile  to  those  which  rule  us.  In 
their  opinions,  conversation,  habits,  they  manifest  the  hostility. 
Hereby  their  official  relations  are  in  no  manner  obstructed  or  em- 
bittered. They  are  true  to  their  masters :  we  acknowledge  and 
respect  their  right  to  be  so.  They  keep  themselves  as  European 
and  aristocratic  as  they  can  ;  nobody  objects  or  takes  offence. 

Now  on  the  contrary,  the  American  diplomatic  agent  in 
Europe,  instead  of  keeping  American  and  republican,  is  no  sooner 
installed,  but  he  sets  about  to  Europeanize  and  aristocratize  him- 
self as  much  as  he  can.  He  bedaubs  his  carriage  with  armorial 
bearings  (if  not  inherited,  improvised) ;  claps  livery  on  his  ser- 
vants ;  begilds  his  outside  often  with  more  than  the  official  lace  ;* 

*  A  court-dress  with  modest  gold-lace  trimmings,  is  prescribed  by  our 
Government.  This  should  be  done  away  with,  as  being  at  war  with  our 

7 


146  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

finds  as  many  virtues  as  possible  in  the  royal  family  where  he  is 
accredited ;  submits  to  condescensions  from  his  or  her  Majesty, 
or  Royal  Highness,  and  even  feels  himself  thereby  elevated  ; 
affects  titled  society,  and  with  self-gratulation  takes  the  place 
which  his  credentials  provide  for  him  as  a  member  of  the  profli- 
gate, arrogant,  brazen,  soulless,  godless  circle  that  surrounds 
every  throne  in  Europe.  But  for  all  his  obsequiousness,  he  and 
his  are  admitted  no  further  than  the  outer  halls  of  this  Temple  of 
Belial.  Aristocracy  is  always  exclusive,  scornful,  relentless,  as 
close  as  freemasonry ;  and  to  obtain  from  it  the  grasp  of  fellow- 
ship, one  must  have  other  credentials  than  those  received  from 
the  President  of  a  Democracy. 

How  different,  and  how  much  more  consistent,  is  the  bearing 
of  a  European  envoy.  He  makes  no  secret  of  being  bored  by 
people  and  things,  public  and  private,  at  Washington.  So  far 
from  seeking  virtues  in  the  Executive  body,  he  scans  it  with 
satirical  malice  ;  he  picks  as  many  holes  as  he  can  in  the  char- 
acter and  intellect  of  our  "great  men  ;"  he  quizzes  our  fashion  ; 
he  sneers  at  our  pretension  ;  and  when  he  quits  us,  he  rejoices  in 
his  departure  as  the  end  of  an  exile.  The  offspring  of  Monarchy 
and  Aristocracy,  he  detests  our  politics  and  hates  our  people. 

The  offspring  of  Democracy,  if  true  in  like  manner  to  his  birth 
and  breeding,  should  regard  every  Christian  king  as  an  usurper, 
every  hereditary  privilege  as  a  robbery ;  and  in  the  presence  of 
royalty  and  nobility,  bedizened  in  court-tinsel,  should  feel  his 
moral  sense  offended,  just  as  is  the  immoral  sense  of  the  diplo- 
matic scion  of  nobility  in  presence  of  the  sovereign  people  in 
America.  The  citizen  of  the  United  States  who  has  not  some- 
thing of  this  feeling,  is  a  spurious  offspring  of  the  Republic. 
However  he  may  vaunt  his  republican  home,  he  has  not  a  dis- 
cerning, logical  appreciation  of  the  blessings  he  is  born  to,  and  is 

universal  usage  in  civil  costume.    Our  Legations  should  be  ordered  to  ap- 
pear at  foreign  courts  in  plaia  ungilded  republican  dress. 


AMERICAN  ENVOYS  IN  EUROPE.  147 

not  fit  fully  to  represent  this  great  self-governing  country  in 
prince-ridden  Europe.  Too  many  of  our  envoys  have  been  thus 
disqualified  ;  and  from  the  commanding  position  we  have  now 
reached  as  the  one  great  Democracy  in  the  world,  hostilely  ar- 
rayed (in  sentiment  at  least)  against  the  despotisms  of  Europe, — 
and  the  object  of  their  fears,  their  machinations,  their  hate, — this 
disqualification  is  become  the  more  discreditable  to  us,  and  the 
more  hurtful  to  our  true  interests.  The  old  and  the  new  are  face 
to  face  in  deadly  defiance.  We  are  the  new,  and  whoever  repre- 
sents us  in  old  Europe,  should  fully  feel  the  nature  and  signifi- 
cance of  this  antagonism,  and  act  throughout  accordingly. 

Instead  of  living  the  simple,  manly  life  of  hearty  republicans, 
encompassed  but  not  defiled,  by  aristocratic  carnalities ;  seeking 
intercourse  with  those  who  are  at  once  the  ornaments  and  pillars 
of  a  country  and  the  best  bonds  between  their  own  and  other 
lands,  the  men  of  science  and  culture,  and  large  sympathies ; 
breathing  encouragement  or  consolation  into  the  hearts  of  the 
bleeding  workers  for  truth  and  humanity  ;  instead  of  this  honora- 
ble, appropriate,  elevated  part,  which  courts  by  its  very  heartiness 
the  representatives  of  the  only  great  Republic  in  the  world,  too 
many  American  legations  are  false  to  their  high  mission,  and, 
by  adopting  the  thoughts  and  associations  of  the  implacable  foes 
of  freedom,  lower  the  American  name  in  Europe.  Aping  and 
otherwise  flattering  haughty  aristocrats,  who  patronize  and  sneer 
at  them,  and  but  for  the  gigantic  uplifted  arm  of  Democracy  be- 
hind, would  despise  them,  they  eagerly  rush,  with  the  shallow 
and  the  idle,  into  the  whirl  of  oligarchic  fashion,  and  there  circle 
round  on  the  outskirts  of  the  dance  of  frivolity  and  vanity,  until 
too  soon  a  change  of  administration  sounds  the  knell  of  their  re- 
call ;  when,  sighing  over  the  loss  of  so  many  Lords,  Counts,  and 
Barons,  with  whom  they  have  sipped  champagne  and  nibbled 
boned  turkey,  and  sighing  still  deeper  to  think,  that  in  exchange 
for  these  beribboned  and  betitled  Dons,  their  associates  henceforth 


148  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

are  to  be  militia  Colonels  and  county  court  Judges,  they  sadly  re- 
turn home  to  hog  and  homony,  or  pork  and  molasses. 

Leaving  the  Club,*  I  drive  far  up  the  Boulevard Poissonniere, 
and  then  turning  into  a  street  to  the  right  soon  alight  at  a  Cafe. 
To  one  familiar  with  Cafes  on  the  Boulevards,  the  plainness  of 
furniture  is  all  that  is  at  first  noticeable.  There  is  the  usual 
sprinkling  of  small  tables,  brilliant  gas-light,  and  on  one  side  of  a 
long  room,  the  raised  desk  where  presides  the  universal  feminine 
Divinity,  who  fingers  the  cash  and  deals  out  sugar  and  orders.  But 
on  calling  for  beer  and  segars,  to  pay  for  entrance,  we  find  cut  on 
the  glasses  a  red  triangle,  emblematic  of  the  tripple-phrased  re- 
publican device.  It  is  a  cheap  democratic  Cafe  where  mechanics 
and  laborers  meet  in  the  evening  for  dominos  and  gossip,  and 
where  for  a  few  sous  they  get  a  glass  of  wine  or  beer  with  tobacco. 
This  is  one  of  the  salons  of  the  poor.  There  are  to-day  not 
many  visitors,  and  so  after  putting  into  the  box,  modestly  pre- 
sented by  the  waiter,  a  small  contribution  for  imprisoned  and 
exiled  democrats,  my  companion  and  I  withdraw. — In  the  marais, 
a  quarter  in  the  direction  of  the  Faubourg  St.  Antoine,  we  alight 
at  another.  Here  in  one  large  hall  are  ten  billiard  tables,  nearly 
all  occupied.  The  players  are  probably  small  clerks,  journey- 
men-tailors, and  others,  whose  sedentary  vocations  earning  for 
them  from  three  to  five  francs  a  day,  they  come  here  to  buy  an 
hour's  exercise  with  that  portion  of  their  incomes  which  continen- 
tal people,  rich  and  poor,  appropriate  to  amusement.  Round  the 
best  players  are  groups  of  pipe-smoking  spectators,  and  dominos 
are  clattering  in  other  parts  of  the  hall.  There  is  nothing  bois- 
terous or  rude;  an  air  even  of  refinement  pervades  the  place. 
The  inmates  seem  to  be  thankfully  enjoying  a  rest  after  the  day's 
work. 

*  The  name  and  composition  of  this  Club  have  since  been  changed,  it 
being  now  called  Cerde  des  deux  Mondes,  and  counting  among  its  members 
a  large  number  of  Americans. 


THE  THEATRES.  149 

—  It  is  past  nine,  when  having  driven  back  down  the  Boule- 
vards, I  enter  the  Theatre  des  Varietes,  and  take  possession  of 
a  stalle  d'orchestre  with  that  pleasant  cachinnatory  expectation 
wherewith  one  seats  oneself  in  a  Parisian  Comic  Theatre. 

Flanked  by  Music  and  Painting  the  Histrionic  Art  here  assails 
the  spectator  with  batteries  of  fun  and  pleasantry.  The  Theatre 
Franqais,  where  Moliere  and  Corneille,  and  the  Opera,  where 
Mozart  and  Bellini  preside,  live  in  the  high  region  of  aesthetics. 
But  the  Varietes  and  its  kindred  are  mostly  in  their  aims  too 
superficial  to  reach  the  aesthetic  sphere.  They  deal  with  facts  not 
with  feelings ;  and  their  facts  are  from  that  omnivorous  but  unin- 
spired receptacle,  the  absurd.  Though  not  themselves  expressing 
the  profound,  their  representations  have  depth  of  significance. 
Just  beneath  the  surface  where  the  ridiculous  plays  its  antics,  lies 
a  ground  of  seriousness  and  sadness.  The  fantastic  figures  of  the 
Comic  are  at  times  but  the  flickering  flames  that  shoot  through 
the  crust  from  an  intense  tragic  fire  that  consumes  the  core. 
The  absurd  is  the  child  of  the  illogical.  The  nonconformity  to 
reason  and  divine  law  in  the  fundamental  relations  of  men  causes 
the  discords  and  complications  out  of  which  the  comic  spins  its 
motley  web.  The  truth  of  comedy  is  often  a  demonstration  of 
the  falsehood  of  sober  life.  Many  a  spectator  here  joins  in  the 
laugh  at  a  sally,  whose  piquancy  is  the  crack  of  the  whip  where- 
with his  domestic  peace  is  lashed  to  death. 

At  these  theatres  three  or  four  pieces  are  given.  When  the 
Parisian  Bourgeois  pays  for  a  box,  he  wishes  to  spend  in  it  the 
whole  evening,  and  a  long  one.  The  second  piece  was  nearly 
over  when  I  entered.  The  third,  the  beginning  whereof  was  not 
very  sprightly,  had  proceeded  half  an  hour,  when  a  sudden  roar 
in  my  ears  made  me  start : — I  had  fallen  asleep,  and  an  electric 
burst  of  merriment  had  waked  me.  I  strove  hard  to  keep  my 
ears  alert  for  the  next  double  entendre,  but  my  eyes  refusing  to 
back  them,  I  retreated,  with  the  reflection,  that  a  theatre  is  not  the 


150  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

place  for  one  who  has  worked  hard  all  day.     The  crowd  that  I 
left  so  wide  awake  and  in  a  mood  so  susceptible  to  fun,  had  risen 
late  and  worked  by  routine,  or  not  at  all. 
My  day  was  ended,  whether  I  would  or  not. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

A  WALK   IN  THE   LOUVBE. 

TO-DAY,  the  26th  of  July,  1851,  I  will  take  one  of  my  last 
walks  in  the  Louvre. 

Cane  or  umbrella  you  surrender  in  the  vestibule,  in  the  base- 
ment dedicated  to  ancient  sculpture.  Marble  walls,  marble  col- 
umns, marble  floor,  marble  statues  in  spacious  lofty  halls,  over- 
topped by  a  palace  and  enfolded  by  four  feet  depth  of  stone. 
Here  is  a  Temple  consecrated  to  coolness.  The  dog-days  stay 
outside  with  the  umbrellas.  Correspondent  to  the  physical  tem- 
perature, the  moral  air  is  sedative.  A  man  enraged  would 
quickly  subside  here  :  before  these  empedestalled  ghosts  he  would 
be  ashamed  of  heat.  But  you  are  not  depressed,  you  are  tran- 
quillized, you  are  elevated.  Sculpture  is  serious,  not  sad  ;  ideal, 
not  servile.  The  silence,  whiteness,  solidity,  induce  meditation. 
The  calm  of  these  figures  imparts  itself  to  the  beholder  ;  their 
pensiveness  is  catching.  They  stand  circumfused,  and  you  with 
them,  by  the  atmosphere  of  the  world's  early  days.  Vivid  and 
youthful  they  come  from  the  dim,  dead  past.  They  have  the 
weight  and  dignity  of  age  without  its  weakness.  They  are  fresh 
from  the  heart  of  Antiquity. 

I  always  go  first  right  through  to  the  Gladiator.  For  two  thou- 
sand years  those  marble  limbs  have  glowed  with  the  splendor  of 
the  perfect  manly  form.  In  presence  of  the  living  human  body 
in  this  marvellous  completeness,  your  delight  in  its  power,  and 


152  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

beauty  almost  passes  into  awe  ;  and  then,  the  intensity  of  sensa- 
tion is  relieved  by  thoughts  on  the  power  and  beauty  of  the  hu- 
man mind  that  could  thus  reproduce  its  own  body. 

Art  is  a  projection  of  man  out  of  himself,  under  the  momentum 
of  an  effort  to  appease  his  yearning  for  beauty.  This  creative 
warmth,  when  it  results,  as  in  this  great  sculpture,  in  the  repro- 
duction of  nature  in  her  selectest  proportions  and  expressions,  im- 
plies mental  elevation  and  intensity.  High  Art  is  the  offspring 
of  the  craving  for  perfection — a  most  noble  parentage. 

Close  by  is  the  Venus  of  Milo,  mutilated  of  the  arms,  in  whose 
erect  body,  sinking  as  it  were  into  itself,  there  is  as  much  sleep- 
ing strength  as  voluptuousness.  In  the  head  and  face,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  mouth,  is  a  world  of  power.  And  herein  this  Venus 
is  higher  and  truer  than  the  famed  one  of  Cleomenes  in  the  Trib- 
une at  Florence.  It  is  a  degradation  of  divine  love  to  present 
its  ideal  in  a  rich  body  with  a  poor  mental  organization.  This  is 
to  shorten  its  wings,  to  materialize  its  flame,  to  sensualize  it  too 
much.  Where  the  head  is  so  small,  as  in  the  statue  of  the  Trib- 
une, all  the  passions  are  limited,  straitened,  belittled.  There 
is  no  channel  for  the  voluminous  flood  of  love,  for  its  exuberant 
ardors,  no  scope  for  a  wide  play  of  its  kindling  influence,  for  its 
deep  impregnation  of  the  whole  large  being  with  its  fire.  That  it 
be  unfolded  in  its  full  richness,  it  should  inflame  a  glowing  strong 
nature,  such  as  is  indicated  by  this  head  of  the  Louvre.  In  that 
wealthy  mouth  there  is  capacity  for  more  than  one  passion,  and 
the  one  that  predominates  is  by  this  opulence  ennobled. 

What  is  the  source  of  the  unique  perfection  in  the  Grecian 
type  of  head  ?  It  is,  that  the  brain — itself  well  proportioned — 
has  generated  the  face.  All  the  features  are  finely  married  to 
one  another  and  to  the  forehead.  The  Grecian  face  is  sub- 
ordinated to  the  forehead.  Thus  the  nose  is  a  continuation 
of  the  line  of  the  brow,  from  which  it  has  the  air  of  being 
directly  descended.  A  Grecian  nose  pre-supposes  a  good  brow. 


GRECIAN  IDEAL  OF  THE  HEAD  AND  FACE.  153 

The  mouth  and  chin  are  predominated  by  the  nose  ;  they  neither 
coarsely  project  nor  weakly  retreat.  The  same  with  the  cheek 
bones,  which  are  kept  back  by  the  intellectual,  sensuous  superior, 
ities  of  the  forehead,  nose  and  eyes.  To  say  that,  in  a  word,  all 
the  parts  of  head  and  face  are  in  harmony,  were  not  enough  ;  for 
the  essence  of  the  Greek  ideal  is  a  harmony  growing  out  of  the 
dominance  of  the  superior  parts.  The  Grecian  face  is  not  of 
necessity  eminently  intellectual,  but  it  cannot  be  animal.  There 
may  be  harmony  out  of  the  Grecian  type,  as  there  may  be  and 
is  great  beauty  without  prevalence  of  the  Grecian  characteristics. 

In  the  Grecian  ideal  the  brow,  the  lower  range  of  the  forehead, 
is  always  full,  the  Greek  mind  being  highly  sensuous.  In  heads 
and  faces  the  furthest  removed  from  the  Greek  type,  there  is  no 
subordination  of  face  to  forehead,  and  no  smooth  union  among  the 
features,  nor  between  them  and  the  brow.  Cheek-bones  are 
prominent,  or  nose  and  chin  independent,  or  nose  is  scornful  of 
its  neighbors,  acknowledging  no  pre-eminence  in  the  forehead 
above  it,  making  between  itself  and  the  brow  a  chasm  over  which 
it  petulantly  leaps  without  the  aid  of  a  bridge,  or  springing  out 
conceitedly  from  the  rest  of  the  face  and  going  on  its  own  hook. 

The  renowned  Diana,  sister  of  the  Apollo  Belvidere,  is  here  ; 
but  the  warm  mood  which  one  brings  from  the  Venus  is  not  that 
most  favorable  to  appreciating  the  cold  beauty  of  the  man-shun- 
ning  goddess.  So,  amid  marbles  less  divinely  touched,  we  will 
pass  on  to  the  stairway  that  leads  to  the  galleries  above. 

Architecture  holds  out  her  magnificent  jewelled  hand  to  conduct 
us  from  the  halls  of  sculpture  to  those  of  painting.  The  ascent 
of  this  grand  stairway  is  an  enjoyment  like  that  of  gazing  at  a 
sculptured  or  painted  masterpiece. 

Crossing  the  graceful,  enmarbled  Rotunda,  at  the  head  of  the 
stairway,  we  traverse  a  gorgeous  hall  more  than  one  hundred 
feet  long,  where  decorative  art  has  lavished  its  wea'lth  of  gildings 
and  mouldings,  and  from  whose  upper  end  we  issue  directly  into 

7* 


154  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  great  octagon  room,  on  the  lofty  walls  whereof  are  piled  up 
many  of  the  masterpieces  of  the  collection,  choice  works  of  the 
columnar  men  of  Art.  Here  we  cannot  now  tarry  ;  this  is  to  be 
the  luxurious  dessert  of  our  day's  feast ;  so,  walking  resolutely 
through  this  treasure-house,  we  enter  the  long  gallery,  which, 
being  arranged  chronologically,  opens  with  the  painters  of  the 
14th  and  15th  centuries,  whose  greatest  merit  it  is  that  they  were 
the  predecessors  and  teachers  of  Leonardo  and  Raphael.  Had 
they  not  had  such  followers,  their  works  would  have  been  un- 
known. The  light  from  the  creations  of  their  great  pupils  draws 
them  out  of  darkness.  Due  honor  to  them  as  having  made  the 
dawn  of  an  unequalled  meridian  splendor ;  but  we  have  not  now 
come  to  study  the  development  of  the  art,  but  to  enjoy  the  pro- 
ducts of  its  ripeness. 

In  our  walk  we  shall  stop  before  those  that  in  frequent  visits 
have  oftenest  arrested  us  ;  not  learnedly  to  comment  on  them,  but 
to  yield  ourselves  to  the  sentiment  they  awaken,  attempting  at 
most  to  account  for  the  impression  made  on  us,  without  aiming  at 
critical  precision  or  technical  accuracy.  Some  of  unquestionable 
excellence  we  shall  pass  by,  and  where  we  do  pause,  we  shall 
not  always  have  the  most  words  for  those  we  most  prize.  We  go 
down  on  the  right  side. 

In  the  Fine  Arts  a  sentiment,  or  incident,  or  person,  or  pas- 
sion, must  be  conveyed  into  the  mind  by  beauty.  If  it  has  not 
beauty  for  its  vehicle  it  does  not  reach  the  inmost  soul,  but  rests 
for  a  time  near  the  surface,  whence  it  is  soon  effaced.  Only  in 
the  beautiful  is  the  divine  idea  vividly  present,  and  therefore  only 
by  the  beautiful  is  the  human  soul  deeply  wrought  and  fertilized. 
To  feel  this,  first  stop  before  this  youthful  head  by  the  great 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  with  auburn  tresses  thickly  matted.  With- 
out deadening,  three  centuries  have  shadowed  that  beaming  brow, 
lour  admiring  gaze  is  met  by  clear,  full,  soul-softened  eyes. 
Through  a  ricli  smile  the  closed  ample  mouth  speaks  joy,  which 


TITIAN.— GIORDANO.  155 

the  eyes  second.  The  up-pointing  finger  leads  your  eye  to  a 
thin,  dim  cross  held  in  the  other  hand,  and  tells  you  that  you  are 
looking  at  St.  John,  whom,  but  for  this  emblem  you  would  have 
taken  for  a  paragon  woman,  so  womanly  are  the  head  and  face  in 
their  contour,  benignant  expression,  and  superlative  beauty.  Drink 
deeply  of  this  countenance,  and  carry  away  as  much  of  it  as  you  can  ; 
the  whole  Empire  of  Art  offers  scarcely  anything  more  inspired. 

Here  is  Francis  I.,  by  Titian.  The  large  sensuous,  sensual 
head  of  the  luxurious  King  is  in  profile,  and  you  at  once  perceive 
that  this  was  the  best  view  of  him,  as  it  always  is  of  a  man  of 
his  organization  and  temperament.  This  head  is  charged  with 
electricity  ;  it  scintillates  with  life. 

By  the  side  of  another  superb  portrait  of  Titian  is  the  head  of 
Tintoret,  by  himself,  earnest,  grizzly,  vigorous. 

Artists  being  the  servants  of  Beauty,  which  is  the  twin-sister 
of  Hope,  should  be  hopeful  when  saddest  :  they  should  be  op- 
timists. Tragic  subjects  treated  in  this  transfiguring  spirit  are 
rare.  Hence  I  avoid  Crucifixions  ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  pass 
this  small  one  by  Paul  Veronese,  it  stands  out  in  such  ghastly 
clearness  against  that  sickly  sky.  Only  strong  genius  is  equal 
to  this  awful  theme,  so  that  by  the  grandeur  of  the  treatment 
Art  bemasters  the  tragic  with  the  sublime.  Even  the  great  Ru- 
bens hardly  does  this  ;  his  Crucifixion  in  the  Museum  at  Ant- 
werp is  too  terrific.  His  masterpiece  is  the  Descent  from  the 
cross,  by  some  deemed  the  masterpiece  of  the  world.  In  a  De- 
scent, the  agony  being  over,  the  heart  is  not  lacerated,  and  yet 
the  whole  feeling  of  the  divine  tragedy  is  brought  home. 

Venus  and  Mars,  with  attendant  Cupids,  by  Lucca  Giordano. 
This  little  picture  is  buoyed  up  by  the  warmth  of  its  coloring  ; 
it  seems  almost  to  float  on  the  air.  Mark  the  little  Cupids,  one 
of  them  with  a  dog,  how  intent  they  are  on  their  own  play,  as 
if  their  work  was  done,  and  they  were  taking  a  holiday. 

Cast  a  glance  at  the  Canalettos  and  Guardis,  with  whom  canal 


156  SCENES, AM)  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

and  quay,  marble  and  water,  fluid  and  solid,  are  but  accessories 
to  exhibit  the  transparence  of  a  Venitian  atmosphere. 

We  have  arrived  at  the  Holy  Family,  by  Murillo,  before  which 
we  would  fain  distend  our  faculty  of  admiration.  The  mother  is 
seated,  the  child  Jesus  standing  on  her  knee,  taking  hold  of  the 
cross  held  by  the  child  St.  John  below,  the  lamb  is  on  the  ground 
before  St.  John's  feet,  the  dove  over  the  head  of  Jesus,  and  the 
Father  is  bending  over  all  from  the  clouds  in  an  attitude  of 
love  and  benediction.  A  rosy  freshness  with  harmony  of  color, 
perfect  grouping,  and  an  expression  from  the  whole  of  religious 
serenity  and  holy  sweetness,  hold  you  before  this  picture  in  a 
state  which  proves  to  you  the  exalting  power  of  Art.  The  ab- 
sence of  a  shining  ideal  in  the  heads  is  made  up  for  by  depth  of 
feeling,  simplicity,  naturalness,  and  grace. 

Hanging  next  it  is  a  landscape  by  Collantes,  full  of  Southern 
richness  and  Spanish  passion. 

Here  is  a  Salvator  Rosa  that  would  whet  an  assassin's  lust 
for  blood.  I  don't  mean  the  grand  battle-piece,  but  the  stormy 
landscape,  the  rock-fronted  desolation,  with  corseletted  bandits 
perched  on  a  precipice. 

Walk  on  until  you  are  stopped  by  the  light  which  breaks  as 
through  a  window,  from  a  Holy  Family  resting  in  their  flight 
by  Albani.  Not  the  first  one,  but  the  second,  No.  6.  [In  the 
first  one,  No.  5,  the  landscape  is  the  best.]  Winged  Angels  are 
offering  flowers  to  the  Child,  who  leans  forward  from  his  mother's 
lap  to  take  them.  The  landscape  looks  illuminated  by  the  holy 
travellers.  The  figures  are  wrought  with  miniature  fineness, 
without  weakness.  Two  Cherubs  flying  down  with  a  basket  of 
flowers,  is  a  picture  within  a  picture. 

We  are  now  in  the  Rubens'  Gallery.  This  series  of  colossal 
canvas  exhibits  the  boundless  conception  and  invention  of  Ru- 
bens. But  his  hands  could  not  gather  up  all  the  wealth  that  his 
brain  shook  down. 


Teniers  exemplifies  the  force  of  truth.  Vividly  refWIfce  Na- 
ture  in  full  moments,  and  without  your  seeking  it  the  electric 
light  of  beauty  will  radiate  from  your  canvas.  The  Temptation 
of  the  Anchorite  is  such  a  picture  as  Burns  would  have  painted, 
had  he  worked  with  pencil.  It  is  sparkling  with  strength  and 
fun.  And  so  brilliantly  executed,  such  a  transparency  of  light 
and  shade,  such  reality  and  vivacity  of  comic  effects.  The 
bearded  head  of  the  Anchorite  is  grand. 

Gerard  Dow,  Ostade,  Mieris,  express  the  delight  there  is  in  the 
artistic  reproduction  of  simple,  homely  objects.  With  them,  Art 
concentrates  itself  into  microscopic  fidelity.  But  there  is  some- 
thing more  than  this.  Look  at  the  Seller  of  game,  by  Mieris  ;  it 
is  ideal  as  well  as  real,  so  select  is  each  object,  and  wrought  with 
such  fineness  of  texture,  which  fineness  is  itself  a  phasis  of  the 
beautiful. 

At  the  end  of  this  compartment  are  the  Vandykes.  The  best 
one  is  on  the  other  side.  If  you  wish  to  be  spoken  to  by  a  pic- 
ture, put  yourself  face  to  face  with  the  portrait  next  to  the  col- 
umn, the  gentleman  with  open  collar  and  dark  velvet  doublet. 

Before  coming  upon  Wouvermans,  there  is  a  single  Moucheron, 
a  strip  of  French  elegant  rurality,  with  vases  and  an  orange  sky, 
a  glorious  segment  cut  out  by  genius  from  Nature's  wide  land- 
scape. 

Two  Boths,  with  skies  that  are  active  with  life.  Whoso  can 
paint  the  air  in  motion  with  sun  in  it  is  a  master  of  landscape. 
That  is  the  key  ;  the  rest  may  by  many  be  acquired  ;  that  is  the 
gift.  In  a  picture,  as  in  nature,  good  air  is  the  first  necessary  ; 
it  vitalizes  each  tiniest  part. 

A  few  steps  further  is  a  small  Heus,  a  gem  of  tone,  color,  deli- 
cacy and  truth  ;  warm  and  happy. 

Here  is  a  Cuyp,  with  shepherds  and  cows,  which  warms  the 
whole  of  the  broad  canvas  it  covers.  It  has  the  virtue  of  cheer- 
fulness. 


168  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

Then  we  have  a  wealth  of  Ruysdaels,  Van  Bergens,  and  one 
Hobbema,*  who  is  the  painter  of  coolness.  The  Van  Bergen 
next  to  it  glows  in  contrast  with  pleasant  summer  heat. 

We  pass  a  number  of  good  Dujardins  to  get  to  the  better  Berg, 
hems.  There  are  eight  or  nine  of  them,  all  with  sleek  cattle 
and  shepherdesses,  and  all  full  of  health  and  content.  Cattle  tell 
of  home  and  sufficiency.  We  like  to  see  them  thus  honored  by 
Art ;  it  pays  part  of  our  debt  to  them. 

Amid  them  is  a  large  Wynants,  strong  enough  to  stand  its  ground 
in  such  proximity.  Let  us  not  overlook  a  Vintrank  over  the  last 
Berghem.  It  is  a  sample  of  modest  merit. 

We  have  reached  the  French  department,  beginning  with  a 
long  line  of  landscapes  by  Poussin.  His  pictures  want  freedom 
and  lightness,  and  especially  they  want  atmosphere,  whereby 
their  grace  of  composition  is  blurred.  He  has  been  called  the 
learned  Poussin.  He  could  never  be  called  the  inspired.  His  pic- 
tures are  faded ;  and  even  the  cheerful  subjects  have  a  sad  look. 

The  glory  of  French  art  is  Claude  Lorrain,  the  lustrous,  as  he 
might  be  termed.  He  has  visited  the  sun,  and  brought  away  the 
secret  of  its  light.  His  pictures  are  heated  by  so  natural  a  fer- 
vor, that  it  seems  supernatural.  It  looks  not  like  art,  but  intu- 
ition. But  besides  this  there  is  an  unfading  grace  in  his  forms, 
whether  of  hill,  tree,  bridge  or  building.  His  water  is  luminous. 

Go  to  the  end  of  the  gallery  for  the  sake  of  a  head  by  Lefevre. 
In  this  head  is  the  mystery  of  all  great  portraits.  The  features 
and  flesh  are  transparent  by  means  of  a  light  burning  within, 
which  makes  the  blood  tingle  to  the  surface. 

We  have  walked  fourteen  hundred  feet  in  a  straight  line  ;  we 
will  return  on  the  other  side. 

Pass  the  long,  stiff,  uniform  regiment  of  lifeless  Lesueurs,  and 

*  My  friend,  Thomas  J.  Bryan,  of  Philadelphia,  for  many  years  a  resi- 
dent of  Paris,  has  in  his  collection  a  Hobbema  of  higher  quality  than  this 


PH1LLIPE  DE  CHAMPAGNE.— PYNAKER.— MIGNOK       159 

only  stop  for  a  moment  before  a  head  by  Ferdinand  Bol,  in  which 
students  of  Harvard  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  back  will  recognize 
good  President  Kirkland  energized. 

A  few  steps  further  is  the  exquisite  Vanderfelde,  an  evening 
cattle-piece,  with  the  purple-tinted  sky  reflected  in  the  glassy 
water. 

We  skip  a  long  file  to  get  to  a  portrait  before  which  I  always 
linger  longer  than  before  any  other  in  the  Louvre,  No.  389,  by 
Phillipe  de  Champagne.  The  lips  are  slightly  parted,  for  there 
is  more  life  within  than  could  be  supported  by  breathing  through 
one  inlet.  From  the  polish  on  the  hair  to  the  dew  of  the  eye, 
there  is  everywhere  inflation  of  life.  The  flesh  has  the  pulpy 
look  that  belongs  to  an  in-door  man,  and  the  transparent  hand 
knows  of  no  rough  handlings.  Pause  here  still  to  wonder  at  the 
vivifying  power  there  is  in  the  fingers  of  man  when  moved  by  a 
genial  brain. 

Next  we  have  three  landscapes  by  Pynaker,  three  graces. 
Here  are  skies  as  warm  and  lively  as  Claude  Lorrain's  ;  not  so 
dazzling,  because  freshened  by  more  northern  clouds  and  less 
expansive.  Every  object  is  rounded  by  the  mellow  ripening  air. 
Clover  is  growing  sweeter  every  hour,  and  peaches  more  juicy. 
The  distances  are  as  true  as  an  Indian's  sight. 

Stop  before  a  fruit-piece  by  Mignon,  the  one  with  the  melon 
and  the  red  Indian  corn,  and  the  summer  ripeness  and  luxuriance. 
To  judge  from  a  glimpse  we  get  through  a  leaf-darkened  arch, 
the  landscape  beyond  is  fine,  but  is  shut  out  by  overgrowth  of 
August  foliage. 

Six  naked  children  dancing  in  a  ring,  hand  in  hand,  to  music 
by  a  maiden  on  a  triangle,  by  Giraud  de  Lairesse.  The  treat- 
ment is  not  equal  to  the  conception  and  composition,  and  to  the 
sensibility  denoted  by  the  choice  of  subject. 

Three  landscapes  by  Asselyn,  which  might  serve  as  pendants 
to  those  of  Pynaker. 


160  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

Next  to  these  is  a  nest  of  Poelembergs,  who  should  be  styled 
the  pearly.  A  practised  discernment  might,  one  would  think,  in 
the  characteristics  of  the  work,  detect  those  of  the  artist.  Yet 
the  engraved  portrait  of  PoeJemberg  is  not  at  all  wanting  in  bold- 
ness and  virility,  while  his  pictures  look  as  though  the  hand  that 
painted  them  had  been  as  soft  as  that  of  a  petted  woman. 

I  am  not  attracted  by  architectural  pictures,  but  I  cannot  pass 
by  Pannini's  interior  of  St.  Peter's  at  Rome,  painted  on  a  canvas 
about  seven  feet  by  five.  The  elevation,  the  vastness,  the  rich- 
ness, the  spaciousness,  the  play  of  light  through  gigantic  arches, 
the  grandeur  and  gorgeousness  of  the  marble  world,  all  is  there. 

It  is  wearing  late,  and  the  large  hall  awaits  us.  We  must 
hasten  by  the  Carraccis  and  the  Guides,  the  tears  in  the  eyes  of 
whose  upturned  feminine  faces  are  drops  distilled  from  the  seren- 
est  depths  of  Heaven.  But  here  is  a  countenance  we  can  never 
pass  without  a  greeting.  Look  at  that  youthful,  mild,  thoughtful, 
beardless,  beautiful,  womanly,  profound  face.  Coleridge  some- 
where says  that  high  poetic  genius  is  largely  feminine.  The 
mind  of  universal  sympathies  has  twofold  elements.  The  type 
and  exponent  of  humanity,  it  partakes  of  woman's  as  well  as 
man's  nature.  The  truth  of  this  is  exemplified  in  the  picture  be- 
fore us,  and  in  the  character  of  him  of  whom  it  is  the  portrait. 
It  is  that  of  the  youthful  Raphael, 

that  beaming  face, 

Where  intellect  is  wed  to  grace. 

Now  we  are  back  to  the  octagon  Hall,  seated  before  the  vast 
renowned  Paul  Veronese,  the  Feast  of  Cana.  This  picture  repre- 
sents not  a  solemn  miracle,  but  a  pleasant  festival  j  it  is  agreeable, 
not  great.  Its  merits  are  in  coloring  and  individualities ;  as  a 
whole  it  is  prosaic.  Neither  the  head  nor  the  position  of  Jesus  is 
predominant.  But  for  the  glory,  it  would  hardly  be  recognized. 
The  foreground  is  filled  by  the  musicians,  who  should  be  nowhere 


CORREGGIO.-OIORGIONE.  161 

visible.  The  two  wings  of  the  table  pull  the  eyes  from  one  to 
the  other  across  the  wide  canvas.  In  a  sacred  subject  such 
gross  anachronisms  of  costume  and  architecture  are  not  allowable. 
Take  away  the  Christ,  and  the  picture  becomes  more  satisfactory. 
It  has  not  the  elevation  and  holiness  which  that  subduing  presence 
should  shed,  whatever  the  subject. 

Two  hours  of  standing  and  walking,  with  eyes  and  brain 
stretched  before  scores  of  differing  mind-moving  objects,  drain 
the  nervous  reservoir.  It  has  just  replenished  itself  by  a  delicious 
slumber  of  twenty  minutes,  whereto  the  deep,  springy,  soft-backed 
ottoman  was  accessory.  A  day-sleep  I  never  enjoyed  more  than 
this,  and  rise  up  re-animated  to  finish  my  grateful  task. 

The  master  is  shown  by  the  selection  of  subjects,  and  then  by 
his  mastery  in  treatment  over  a  good  choice.  Capability  of  grace 
is  the  highest  test  of  a  pictorial  subject.  The  artist  having  the 
insight  and  sensibility  to  appreciate  this  test,  his  next  step  is  to 
make  the  most  of  this  capability  in  his  execution.  Look  at  the 
Correggio  on  the  left  of  the  Supper  of  Cana.  Here  is  grace  in 
forms,  in  attitude,  in  grouping,  in  expression. 

Beauty  does  not  necessarily  involve  grace.  Grace  is  the 
matrix  of  beauty,  but  the  offspring  sometimes  neglects  the  parent. 
Grace  is  the  finer  essence,  an  emanation  or  a  movement  which  is 
more  than  corporeal  beauty.  "  The  beautiful,"  says  Plato,  "  is 
the  splendor  of  the  true."  The  graceful  may  be  called  the  spirit 
of  the  beautiful.  Grace  is  always  beautiful,  but  beauty  is  not 
always  graceful. 

Contrast  with  this  divine  Correggio  the  Giorgione  next  to  it. 
Those  two  nude  female  figures  look  as  though  they  had  been  fatted 
for  roasting. 

Talent  cannot  reveal,  it  can  only  perceive  what  is  already  re- 
vealed ;  new  things  it  invests  with  old  forms.  Genius  not  only 
reveals,  but  to  old  things  it  gives  a  new  face.  See  that  Raphael, 
the  winged  St.  Michael  descending,  spear-pointed,  upon  the  pros- 


162  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

trated  Devil.  Here  is  grandeur  magnified,  simplicity  ennobled, 
by  grace.  What  lightness  in  the  down-flashing  angel,  and  at  the 
same  time  what  power;  how  strength  is  spiritualized  by  beauty. 
The  wings  here  give  impetus  to  the  blow.  Wings  help  a  descend- 
ing figure ;  but  when  the  figure  ascends,  their  inadequacy  to  lift 
the  human  body  will  mingle  in  and  weaken  the  effect.  The 
wings  idealize  the  combat,  which  without  them  would  be  prosaic, 
like  all  combats,  the  which  are  therefore  subordinate  subjects  of 
Art.  The  cultivated  sensibility,  which  in  health  rejects  real 
horrors,  digests  easily  the  factitious  when  handled  in  this  style. 
In  Raphael  as  in  Shakspeare  instinct  and  judgment  work  to- 
gether. 

The  Correggio  opposite,  Antiope  and  Jupiter  in  form  of  a  satyr, 
with  its  glittering  beauty  in  the  head  and  limbs  of  Antiope,  falls 
short  of  perfection  from  the  ungraceful  foreshortened  position  of 
the  body. 

The  comic  dispenses  with  grace,  or  rather  it  veils  it  with  a  play- 
ful mask.  In  the  corner  is  an  Ostade,  wherein  is  more  of  the 
comic  than  probably  the  artist  intended.  It  is  a  schoolroom,  with 
urchins  at  anything  but  their  books,  and  presents  a  quiet  rich  con- 
trast between  pedagogy  and  nature,  between  compulsion  and 
liberty,  the  teacher  being  the  most  compelled.  What  transpar- 
ence, individuality,  reality.  The  light  goes  into  every  corner, 
and  the  shadows  too  are  everywhere.  You  can  measure  the 
dimensions  of  the  room. 

Further  to  the  left  is  a  Solario,  a  Mother  suckling  her  child, 
before  the  which  you  can  commit  no  extravagance  of  praise,  such 
a  clustering  of  beauties  is  there.  You  think  the  mother's  face  the 
most  beautiful  you  ever  saw,  so  beaming  is  it  with  maternal  joy. 
Then  fix  your  look  on  the  infant,  holding,  in  the  playful  fulness 
of  life,  one  foot  in  his  hand.  After  you  have  wondered  at  the 
creative  efficacy  of  Art,  cap  your  admiration  with  a  gaze  into  his 
half-closed  eye.  I  know  not  what  is  the  judgment  of  traditional 


BEAUTY  IN  ART.  168 

criticism  on  this  picture,  but  to  me  it  is  one  of  the  master- works  of 
the  Louvre. 

We  pass  a  female  head  of  Rembrandt,  glowing  in  the  golden 
mist  that  he  steeps  his  heads  in,  and  pause  before  a  Raphael 
beside  it,  another  maternal  incarnation,  and  we  let  the  breath  of 
genius  inflate  enthusiasm  till  it  floods.  Here  is  a  rainbow  of  ex- 
pression whose  feet  are  the  countenances  of  the  ecstatic  St.  John 
and  the  sleeping  child,  and  its  arch  that  of  the  benignant  mother. 

Next  is  another  woman.  But  here  is  no  deep  emotion  inspiring 
the  countenance.  There  is  no  sparkling  flush  of  feeling  on  the 
surface.  The  soul  is  not  out  on  the  face,  it  sleeps  behind.  Gaze, 
and  you  will  become  aware  of  it,  and  at  the  same  time  not  wish 
it  more  revealed.  The  power  of  beauty  here  suffices ;  its  excess 
is  its  inspiration.  Anything  more  were  too  much,  and  would 
overcome  the  artist.  This  is  beauty  in  its  calm  splendor,  in  its 
dazzling  ripeness.  It  is  "  Titian's  Mistress." 

Beauty  in  Art,  itself  the  highest  artistic  creation,  is  in  turn 
creative,  inbreeding  in  the  beholder  new  thoughts,  dilating  him 
into  a  higher,  happier  susceptibility. 


CHAPTER  XX. 


FRAGMENTS. 


IN  one  of  the  "Latter  Day  Pamphlets,"  Mr.  Carlyle  asks 
tauntingly,  what  have  the  Americans  done  ? — We  have  abolished 
Monarchy,  we  have  abolished  Aristocracy ;  we  have  sundered 
Church  and  State ;  we  have  so  wrought  with  our  English  inheri- 
tance, that  most  Englishmen  better  their  condition  by  quitting  the 
old  home  and  coming  to  the  new.  We  have  consolidated  a  State, 
under  whose  disinterested  guardianship  the  cabined  and  strait- 
ened of  the  old  world  find  enlargement  and  prosperity.  We  have 
suppressed  standing  armies ;  we  have  decentralized  government 
to  an  extent  that  before  our  experiment  was  deemed  hopeless  ; 
we  have  grown  with  such  a  dream-like  rapidity,  as  to  stand,  after 
little  more  than  a  half-century  of  national  existence,  prominent  on 
the  earth  among  the  nations ;  and  this,  through  the  wisdom  of 
political  organization,  whereby  such  scope  is  given  to  industry 
and  invention,  that  not  only  are  our  native  means  profitably  de- 
veloped, but  the  great  influx  of  Europeans  is  healthfully  absorbed. 
We  have  in  fifty  years  put  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific 
an  Empire  of  twenty-five  millions,  who  work  more  than  any 
twenty-five  millions  on  earth,  and  read  more  than  any  other  fifty 
millions.  We  have  built  a  State  at  once  so  solid  and  flexible, 
that  it  protects  all  without  oppressing  any.  Our  land  is  a  hope 
and  a  refuge  to  the  king-crushed  laborers  of  Europe,  and  from 
the  eminence  above  all  other  lands  to  which  it  has  ascended,  by 


FRAGMENTS.  165 

our  forecast,  vigor,  and  freedom,  it  is  to  the  thinker  a  demonstra- 
tion of  the  upward  movement  of  Christendom,  and  a  justification 
of  hopes  that  look  to  still  higher  elevations. 

Mr.  Carlyle's  sneers  at  our  lack  of  heroism  would  be  unworthy 
of  him,  from  their  very  silliness,  were  they  not  more  so  from  their 
sour  injustice.  Let  any  People  recite  its  heroic  deeds,  on  flood 
or  field,  since  we  were  a  nation,  and  we  will  match  every  one  of 
them.  And  in  the  private  sphere,  where  self-sacrifice,  devotion, 
courage,  find  such  scope  for  heroic  virtues,  our  social  life  is  warm 
with  them.  But  this  is  no  theme  for  words.  For  his  unworthy 
ones,  we  deem  well  enough  of  Mr.  Carlyle  to  believe,  that,  when 
disengaged  from  the  morbidly  subjective,  and  therefore  blinding 
and  demoralizing  moods,  to  which  he  is  liable,  he  is  ashamed  of 
having  printed  them.  It  looks  somewhat  as  though  this  passage 
had  been  written  just  to  give  us  an  opportunity  of  victorious  re- 
tort, or  to  tempt  us  into  an  exhibition  uf  our  national  propensity  to 
brag, — a  propensity,  be  it  said,  which  is  national  in  every  na- 
tion we  know  anything  of,  whether  English,  French,  German,  or 
Italian.  We  only  beat  them  in  bragging,  just  as  we  beat  them 
in  ploughs  and  statues,  in  clippers  and  steamboats,  in  whalemen 
and  electric  telegraphs,  in  cheap  newspapers  and  cheap  govern- 
ment. They  all  do  their  best  at  bragging,  and  so  do  we, — and 
we  beat  them. 

The  mummies  of  Egypt  are  a  type  of  conservatism, — a  child- 
ish effort  to  perpetuate  corporeal  bulk,  to  eternize  the  perishable, 
to  subordinate  essence  to  form,  to  deny  death.  The  result  is  a 
mummy. 

It  were  hard  to  say,  whether  in  this  "  villainous  world"  there  is 
more  of  malignant  censure,  or  of  unclean  praise. 


Hereditary  aristocrats  are  puppets  to  whom  motion  is  imparted 


166  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

by  wires,  inserted  under  ground  into  the  dead  bones  of  their  fore- 
fathers. 

In  England,  money  is  the  only  means  wherewith  to  get  what 
is  called  a  "  good  education."  The  best  is  poor  enough,  to  be 
sure.  For  want  of  culture,  the  minds  and  souls  of  the  masses 
stagnate  in  a  brutish  obscurity,  or  blindly  stir  in  a  chaotic  twi- 
light. Thus  are  the  noblest  and  highest  faculties  in  man  dependent 
for  their  unfolding  and  growth,  on  gold, — gold,  which  in  our  pres- 
ent society,  is  ever  obtained  by  accident,  by  self-immolation,  or  by 
fraud.  The  treasure  of  God  is  in  the  keeping  of  Mammon. — With 
us,  public  schools  greatly  assuage  this  evil.  - 

In  civilized  life, — which  is  a  universal  battle, — truth  forms  the 
reserve,  and  is  only  brought  up  at  critical  junctures. 

There  are  spiritual  egotists,  people  who  self-complacently  as- 
sume to  be  the  elected  of  God.  The  humility  of  such  is  a  weed 
nourished  in  the  rank  soil  of  pride  ;  their  belief  is  mostly  an  in- 
duration on  the  fancy  of  a  shallow  nature. 

Many  of  the  self-righteous  are  not  only  proud  of  their  supposed 
nearness  to  God,  but  assume  towards  him  patronizing  airs ;  so 
monstrous  are  the  effects  of  pride  in  combination  with  religion. 

Music  is  a  marriage  of  the  sensual  with  the  spiritual.  Each 
is  merged  in  the  other.  In  perfect  harmony  there  will  be  neither 
sensual  nor  spiritual,  but  the  two  will  be  made  one  in  the  fulness 
of  life  and  purity. 

One  has  at  times  the  desire  to  cast  away  one's  personality,  with 
all  the  petty  memories  and  imaginations  that  cling  around  self, 
and  to  bound  off  into  the  empyrium  of  the  Universal.  Thus  dis- 


FRAGMENTS.  167 

encumbered,  the  Intellect  and  Soul  might  make  great  discoveries. 
Is  not  this  the  secret  of  the  far-seeing  glances  of  some  of  the 
mesmerized,  that  they  are  emancipated  from  the  bonds  of  self, 
and  for  the  time  lifted  out  of  the  obscurities  of  fleshly  life,  into 
the  translucent  sphere  of  the  disembodied  ? 

Galileo  calls  doubt  the  father  of  inventions. 

The  practical  might  imparted  by  integrity  is  seldom  fully  val- 
ued. Hence  Washington  is  underrated  by  some  men,  who  judge 
him  by  his  intellect  and  prudence. 

Our  habitation,  the  Earth,  is  not  self-subsisting ;  it  moves  in 
dependence  on  a  heavenly  body  far  distant.  The  Sun's  light 
helps  to  feed  the  breath  of  our  bodies  ;  and  shall  we  from  the  soil 
beneath  our  feet,  from  the  dust  into  which  our  bodies  dissolve, 
draw  the  breath  of  our  souls  ?  If  millions  of  miles  off  is  one  of 
the  chief  sustainers  of  our  flesh,  where  should  we  look  for  the 
source  of  the  spirit  we  feel  within  us  ? 

When  a  man's  conversation  consists  chiefly  of  reminiscence, 
he  may  be  said  to  talk  backwards. 

People  in  high  places  who  are  not  beneficent,  are  out  of  place 
on  an  elevation. 

When  there  have  been  great  examples  of  virtue,  revealing  the 
capabilities  of  human  nature,  crime  in  the  powerful  is  more 
criminal  than  in  earlier  inexperienced  times.  The  selfishness  of 
Napoleon  is  more  repugnant  than  that  of  Ceesar. 

In  many  cases  when  people  speak  of  their  conscience,  conceit 
is  mistaken  for  conscience 


168  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

When  man  is  young,  the  whence  he  is  and  the  mysteriousness 
of  his  being  possess  his  nascent  thoughts.  Later,  he  occupies 
himself  about  the  object  and  ends  of  his  existence.  Hence  the 
religious  dreams  of  nations  in  their  youth  ;  and  the  philosophies 
of  nations  that  are  cultivated. 

Preaching  is  in  these  days  not  unlike  shovelling  sand  with  a 
pitchfork. 

Men  whose  masterly  vigor  was  the  servant  of  expediency  not 
of  principle,  self-seekers  not  truth-seekers,  liars  in  act  and  in 
thought,  were  Cromwell  and  Bonaparte. 

The  Hebrews  mounted  to  the  idea  of  unity  ;  but  their  God 
was  revengeful,  "  a  jealous  God,"  and  therefore  false  and  sub- 
human. 

The  Greeks  were  more  intellectual  and  much  more  aesthetic 
than  the  Hebrews ;  yet  one  cannot  conceive  of  Christianity  ori- 
ginating in  polytheistic  Greece,  it  could  only  spring  up  in  mono- 
theistic Judea. 

To  the  opinions  and  creeds  they  have  received  from  their  fa- 
thers men  hold  as  to  the  houses  and  lands  they  have  inherited. 
Conservatism  is  a  sort  of  materialism,  men  confounding  the  spir- 
itual with  the  material,  and  treating  him  who  takes  away  their 
opinions  like  him  who  steals  their  cattle ;  in  their  density  not  per- 
ceiving that,  instead  of  a  theft,  the  destruction  of  their  opinions  is 
a  barter  whereby  they  may  gain  a  hundred-fold.  Thoughts  are 
subject  to  higher  laws  than  things. 

Beliefs  imply  non-beliefs.  Creeds  are  compounded  mainly  of 
negations. 

The  remedy  for  England  is  to  turn,  not  her  waste  lands  to  use, 


FRAGMENTS.  169 

but  her  waste  mind,  her  waste  intellect  and  feeling.     This,  the 
most  precious  domain  she  possesses,  is  half  tilled  in  patches. 


Good  rhetoric  is  a  good  thing  in  a  good  cause. 


By  continuous  breach  of  the  moral  law,  men  forfeit  mental 
growth.  Napoleon  and  Cromwell  grew  not  wiser  as  they  grew 
older.  Their  minds  did  not  ripen,  they  petrified. 

On  the  Continent  of  Europe  it  looks  as  though  government  had 
been  made  first,  and  man  afterwards. 

The  great  recent  discoveries  of  Gall,  of  Fourier,  of  Priesnitz, 
all  combine  to  make  apparent  the  resources,  the  incalculable 
vigors,  the  inborn  sufficiency  of  man. 


In  England  so  many  people  look  as  though  they  were  waiting 
for  my  lord. 

That  with  all  the  mind's  achievements,  practical  and  poetical, 
its  conquests  in  science,  its  Christian  and  intellectual  develop- 
ment, its  many  enlargements  and  emancipations,  there  still  should 
be  so  much  evil,  so  much  misery,  proves  how  wide  a  swing  man- 
kind  must  make  to  fulfil  its  destiny.  Hereby  are  denoted  opu- 
lence, and  depth,  and  complexity  of  power. 

In  this  light,  evil  is  a  whip  to  urge  moral  effort  up  to  high 
tension.  Society  perfects  itself  through  tribulation.  Man  may 
be  figured  as  at  first  lying  in  the  low  places  of  life,  with  but  dim 
sparse  glimmerings  into  upper  fields.  Out  of  a  night  of  animal 
being,  little  by  little  he  struggles  into  the  day  of  a  wider  hu- 
manity, his  struggles  getting  fiercer  as  he  rises.  As  feeling  and 
thought  unfold  themselves,  his  inward  conflicts  grow  warmer  and 
deeper.  The  grandeurs  of  his  nature  loom  out  as  much  in  endu- 

8 


170  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN   EUROPE. 

ranee  as  in  action.  The  terrible,  the  pathetic,  the  sublime,  are 
the  great  offspring  of  his  throes,  the  tokens  of  his  splendor  and 
his  resources.  Through  this  stormy  region,  darkened  by  chasms 
and  abysses,  he  ascends  to  one  more  serene,  where,  under  influ- 
ences wrought  out  by  his  higher  self,  he  breathes  an  atmosphere 
predominated  by  spiritual  elements.  He  grows  in  intellect  by 
working  with  Nature  in  her  richest  fields ;  and  with  his  heart 
purified  by  beauty,  and  enlarged  and  strengthened  into  freer 
communion  with  God,  he  attains  at  last  to  a  blessed  activity,  a 
creative  calm. 

Shakspeare's  words,  when  boldest  and  richest,  are  but  ambas- 
sadors, behind  whom  there  is  a  greater  than  themselves.  Ra- 
cine's and  Afieri's,  though  not  so  erect  and  gorgeous,  are  the 
Kings  themselves,  and  thus  leave  nothing  untold,  and  feed  not 
the  imagination. 

To  see  things  as  they  are,  one  must  have  sympathy  with  the 
Spirit  of  God,  whence  all  things  come.  Then  can  be  discerned 
to  what  degree  there  is  remoteness  from  original  design,  and  thus 
actual  conditions  be  rightly  judged. 

In  the  style  of  Shakspeare  there  is  an  oceanic  undulation.  In 
that  of  Corneille  and  Racine  the  surface  is  level,  or  if  broken,  it 
is  with  furrows,  not  with  billows. 

In  poetry,  much  of  the  meaning  is  conveyed  by  the  sound. 
Transpose  the  words  of  a  fine  passage,  and  you  impair  its  import. 


You  may  gather  a  rainbow  out  of  one  of  Rubens's  great  pictures. 

A  sonnet  should  be  like  a  spring,  in  being  clear  and  deep  in 
proportion  to  its  surface  ;  and  like  a  whirlpool,  in  a  certain  silent 
self-involved  movement. 


FRAGMENTS.  171 

The  mind  is  defiled  that  comments  habitually  on  the  vices  of 
others.  One  that  is  undefiled,  cannot  long  endure  the  fumes  that 
arise  from  the  stirring  of  moral  filth. 

When  a  man  readily  gives  ear  to  a  calumny,  he  betrays  fellow- 
feeling  with  the  malignity  whence  it  sprang. 


Forms  soon  waste  the  substance  they  are  designed  to  hold. 
Thus  ceremony  and  hypocritical  corporeal  salutations  get  to  be  a 
substitute  for  genuine  politeness ;  religion  is  crushed  under  a 
burthen  of  ritual  observances ;  paper-money  drives  out  metal,  to 
represent  which,  it  was  invented. 


Some  of  Wordsworth's  poetry  is,  like  his  person,  too  gaunt ;  it 
wants  a  fuller  clothing  of  flesh. 

Many  of  the  old  monasteries  were  founded  by  repentant  repro- 
bates ;  and  the  early  sins  of  their  founders  seem  to  have  borne 
fuller  crops,  than  their  latter  virtues. 


Every  now  and  then  a  woman  sallies  boldly  into  our  territory ; 
as  if  she  wanted  to  make  reprisals  on  the  tailors. 

When  you  build  selfishly,  you  build  frailly.  When  your  acts 
are  hostile  to  the  broad  interests  of  your  fellow-men,  they  are 
seed  which  will  one  day  come  up  weeds,  to  choke  your  own  har- 
vest-field. 

A  man  with  wounded  feelings  walks  into  the  country,  and 
there  the  perfumes  and  sweet  aspects  of  Nature  accost  his  heart 
with  consolation. 

Rhymes  should  sit  as  lightly  on  verse,  as  flowers  on  plants. 


172  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

Poetry  is  not  put  into  verse  to  please  the  ear ;  it  is  in  verse  be- 
cause  it  is  the  offspring  of  a  spirit  akin  to  that  which  dwells  ever 
in  hearing  of  the  music  of  the  spheres.  To  poetry,  rhythm  is  as 
natural,  as  symmetry  to  a  beautiful  face.  Genuine  verse  pleases 
the  ear,  because  like  the  voice  of  childhood  or  of  woman,  it  is  in 
itself  delightful.  The  setting  sun,  a  lively  landscape,  a  noble 
deed,  give  pleasure,  because  they  speak  to  and  are  in  harmony 
with  our  higher  being  ;  and  so  is  poetry,  and  therefore  it  too  gives 
pleasure.  But  to  say,  that  the  object  of  poetry  is  to  give  pleasure, 
is  to  rank  it  with  the  shallow  inventions  of  the  showman. 

In  the  drama,  the  incidents  should  all  grow  out  of  the  charac- 
ters. Individual  characterization  is  the  mystery  of  the  drama. 
He  who  does  not  unlock  this  mystery,  fails  to  achieve  a  genuine 
drama,  whatever  may  be  his  other  excellencies. 

The  strong  genius  who  rules,  as  strong  genius  always  does, 
his  fellows,  feeds  them  from  the  common  springs  of  humanity, 
with  evil  or  with  good,  through  the  vast  channels  of  his  own 
mind.  If  himself  evil,  the  evil  of  his  time  sways  his  contempo- 
raries through  him.  Into  himself  he  collects  the  black  vapors  of 
.falsehood,  and  blasts  them  forth  over  the  world  or  his  country, 
with  a  tempestuous  power,  before  which  the  good  and  the  true 
shrink  for  a  time  into  privacy  and  silence.  But  what  he  does, 
however  stupendous,  lacks  life ;  for  evil  cannot  create,  it  can 
only  obstruct  or  arrest  creative  good. 

The  poet  is  the  pupil  of  truth ;  for  the  false  can  never  be  poetry. 

The  dramatic  writer,  says  Lessing,  as  his  production  is  to  be 
seen  as  well  as  heard,  is  somewhat  under  the  restrictions  of  the 
painter. 

Lessing,  who  may  almost  be  called  the  father  of  modern  criti- 


FRAGMENTS.  173 

cism,  thinks  that  the  chief  cause  of  the  inferiority  of  the  Romans 
in  tragedy,  was  their  gladiatorial  combats.  In  the  words  of  De 
Quincey,  who  has  adopted  this  opinion,  "  the  amphitheatre  extin- 
guished the  theatre." 

In  sunny,  fruitful,  populous  Italy,  naught  is  so  alive  as  the 
voice  of  the  long-dead  Dante.  Sick  at  heart,  the  Italian,  prince- 
ridden  and  priest-ridden,  goes  to  his  home,  saddened  by  the  exe- 
cution, or  imprisonment,  or  exile  of  a  son  or  brother,  and  there, 
to  fly  from  the  present,  he  opens  his  Dante ; — and  soon  his  pulse 
beats  strong  again,  and  his  eye  glistens,  and  he  gains  assurance 
of  his  own  manhood,  and  he  hopes  and  he  dares. 

Where  in  English  Prose  is  there  a  diction  so  copious,  apt,  force- 
ful, as  Carlyle's,  at  once  so  transparent  with  poetic  light  and  so 
compact  with  a  home-driving,  idiomatic  solidity,  doing  the  errand 
of  a  thoughtful  fervent  nature  with  such  fulness  and  emphasis  ? 

Possibly  the  mind  cannot,  in  its  most  far-piercing  imaginations, 
outrun  its  capabilities.  Were  it  a  law  of  being,  that  the  bright- 
est flowers,  unfolded  in  the  sun  of  the  heart's  warmest  day-dreams, 
contain  the  seeds  of  substantial  realities  ? 

Just  ideas  are  the  only  source  of  healthy  moral  life  ;  by  them 
are  institutions  moulded,  and  to  uphold  institutions  which  ideas 
have  outgrown,  is  to  be  destructive,  not  conservative.  They  are 
the  highest  benefactors  of  their  race  who  can  discern  and  apply 
the  deepest  ideas ;  and-  thus  the  boldest  reformer  may  be  the 
truest  conservative. 

The  Greeks  and  the  English  seem  to  be  the  only  two  nations 
possessing  enough  sap  and  vigor  and  fulness  of  nature,  to  repro- 
duce themselves  in  distant  soils,  through  colonists  that  swarmed 
off  from  the  parent  hive. 


174  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

What  power  there  is  in  belief,  and  what  power  in  falsehood, 
in  our  sensual  organization  of  society,  that  sinful,  semi-pagar 
Rome  is  still  the  so-called  spiritual  head  of  the  half  of  Chris- 
tendom. 


In  Italy  the  living  is  clewed  to  the  dead  :  the  carcass  of  the 
past  lies  athwart  the  legs  of  the  present. 


The  increasing  delight  in  Natural  Scenery  is  one  of  the  proofs 
that  man  is  growing  nearer  to  God . 

We  talk  of  this  man's  style  and  that  man's,  when,  rightly 
speaking,  neither  of  them  has  a  style.  Style  implies  a  substantial 
body  of  self-evolved  thought.  The  mode  and  quality  of  the 
clothing  in  words  and  phrases  to  this  original  body  constitutes 
style.  Now,  from  so  few  minds  come  fresh  emanations,  that  most 
writings  are  but  old  matter  re- worded,  current  thought  re-dressed. 
Each  one's  individual  mode  of  re-wording  and  re-dressing  is, 
and  should  be  called,  his  manner,  not  his  style.  In  Writing  as  in 
Painting,  ever)'-  man,  the  weakest  as  well  as  the  strongest,  must 
have  a  manner,  but  few  can  have  a  style. 

To  be  sought  and  cherished  is  the  man  whose  mind  is  too  large 
to  be  filled  by  creeds  and  systems,  and  too  generous  to  close 
itself  against  any  wants  of  humanity.  The  mental  home  of  the 
true  man  is  among  principles,  and  principles  are  infinitely  ex- 
pansive. 

People  nominally  worship  God  one  day  in  the  week,  and 
really  worship  Mammon  seven. 


The  grand  and  sublime  are  in  the  exuberance  of  rudimental 
energy.     Heaving  and  glowing  with  creative  power,  they  stand 


FRAGMENTS.  175 

apart,  too  stern  to  coalesce,  too  overbearing  for  harmony.  They 
are  Strength  not  yet  married  to  Grace.  Hence  they  generally 
precede  the  beautiful.  Phidias  came  before  Praxitiles,  Michael 
Angelo  before  Raphael,  ^Eschylus  before  Sophocles. 


1st  Boy  (tauntingly).     Who  was  that  man  with  your  father  ? 
2d  Boy.     That  man's  worth  more  than  your  father. 
1st  Boy.     He  was  drunk,  anyhow. 
2d  Boy.     He's  worth  two  houses. 

1st  Boy  (worsted).  Ho,  I  guess  my  father's  worth  two  houses, 
too.  (Street  dialogue,  Newport,  R.  I.,  Jan.  26,  1848.) 

St.  Augustine  calls  Homer,  "  Sweet  liar." 

The  Bible  should  be  studied  with  activity  of  spirit.  Its  great 
heart  will  not  beat  but  to  the  throbbing  of  yours.  Just  to  read 
it  passively,  traditionally,  dulls  the  very  susceptibility  through 
which  it  is  to  be  taken  in.  Not  thus  will  you  find  God  in  the 
Bible.  Who  has  not  first  sought  him  in  his  own  heart  and  in 
the  life  around  him,  will  scarcely  find  him  there  at  all.  God  is 
not  locked  up  in  the  Bible  :  he  is  at  all  times  around,  within  us. 
Strive  with  Jesus  to  feel  his  presence.  Then  you  may  hope  for 
purification,  for  inspiration  :  then  your  heart  may  produce  bibli- 
cal chapters.  For  what  is  in  the  Bible  came  out  of  the  human 
soul,  touched  to  inspired  utterances  by  the  awakened  inward 
divinity. 

The  Priests  of  Rome  discourage  intercourse  with  God  through 
the  Bible,  which  is  already  at  one  remove.  Themselves  they 
constitute  the  sole  interpreters  of  the  divine,  the  sole  medium  of 
communication  between  God  and  man.  The  divine  essence  they 
would  first  distil  through  the  foul  alembic  of  their  brazen  egot- 
ism. Hence,  where  they  long  dominate,  religion  becomes  mate- 


176  SCENES   AND  THOUGHTS   IN  EUROPE. 

rialized,  and  for  uplifting,  soul-purging  knowledge  of  God,  is 
substituted  abasing,  sensual  submission  to  priesthood. 


Widely  and  kindly  around  us  must  we  look  as  well  as  in- 
wardly and  upwardly,  or  we  leave  untenanted  some  of  the  heart's 
best  chambers.  Our  breasts  are  large  enough  to  entertain  mul- 
titudes, and  only  when  thus  filled  is  our  daily  life  a  full  blessing. 

Our  poor  social  organization  engenders  vacuums,  which  are 
apt  to  fill  with  wind.  Hence,  most  of  Northern  "  abolitionism," 
and  other  pseudo-philanthropies.  Many  people  are  not  comfortable 
without  pets  or  hobbies.  It  is  not  the  poor  African  that  is  the 
pet, — would  that  it  were, — but  a  something  abstract,  an  ideal  for- 
mula, a  pet  of  the  mind.  That  it  cannot  become  concrete,  is  its 
chief  qualification  as  a  hobby.  It  can  be  ridden  the  more 
showily  and  at  the  same  time  safely.  Snuffing  perfume  from 
the  fields  sown  by  a  philanthropized  imagination,  the  rider  ca- 
reers along  with  a  plethoric  self-complacency,  and  really  believes 
that  he  is  doing  something.  And  so  he  is,  in  truth,  but  some- 
thing different  from  what  he  believes.  This  class  of  people  have 
discovered  the  secret  of  making  virtue  easy. 

An  ape  is  a  creature  who  has  approached  the  gates  of  reason, 
and  stands  there  grinning  and  jabbering  in  tragi-comical  igno- 
rance of  his  nearness  to  the  regal  palace. 


Religious  humility  i.s  apt  to  be  accompanied  by  personal  ar- 
rogance. 

So  luminous  and  creative  is  the  mind,  that  what  is  brought  to 
it  through  the  imagination  is  often  more  stirring  than  the  same 
presented  by  the  senses.  Hence,  some  scenes  are  more  exciting 
if  well  told,  than  if  actually  beheld.  The  mind  magnifies  and 
adorns  them  in  its  immeasurable  chambers. 


FRAGMENTS.  177 

We  seek  happiness  by  heaping  on  our  puny  selves  all  we  can, 
each  one  building,  according  to  the  joint  force  of  his  intellect  and 
selfishness,  a  reversed  pyramid,  under  the  which  the  higher  it 
rises  the  lower  he  is  crushed  on  the  small  spot  his  small  self  can  fill. 

We  are  capable  of  life-long  joy.  Continuous,  varied  enjoy- 
ment might  be  the  sum  of  earthly  existence.  If  our  lives  will  not 
bring  out  this  sum,  it  is  because  men  have  misplaced,  or  mislaid, 
or  overlooked,  or  misreckoned  with  some  of  the  counters. 


When  we  sow  the  best  fields  of  life  with  our  appetites,  we  can- 
not but  reap  hates  and  fears.  Blighting  disappointment  comes 
from  thwarted  greeds,  from  frustrated  self-seeking. 

A  fit  ideal  embodiment  of  the  artist  were  a  countenance  up- 
raised, beaming,  eager,  joyful,  moulded  with  somewhat  of  femi- 
nine mobility. 

Goethe  goes  out  of  himself  into  the  being  of  natural  objects. 
Wordsworth  takes  their  being  up  into  himself.  These  two  poets 
illustrate  sharply  the  difference  between  the  objective  and  the  sub- 
jective. 

Envy,  like  venomous  reptiles,  can  only  strike  at  short  distances. 
There  is  no  deeper  law  of  nature  than  that  of  change. 
A  book  should  be  a  distillation. 


Everything  that  we  do  being  a  cause,  he  is  the  most  sagacious 
who  so  does  that  each  cause  shall  have  its  good  effect.  This 
practical  long  sightedness  is  wisdom,  the  want  of  it  foolishness. 
To-days  are  all  fathers  of  to-morrows,  but  like  many  other  fathers, 


178  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

they  sadly  neglect  their  paternal  duties.  To-day,  if  it  thinks  at 
all,  thinks  of  itself,  and  leaves  to-morrow  to  take  care  of  itself. 
Life  is  a  daily  laying  of  eggs,  some  to  be  hatched  to-morrow, 
some  next  month,  some  next  year,  some  next  century.  Many  are 
not  hatched  at  all,  but  rot  or  are  broken ;  many  come  premature- 
ly out  of  the  shell,  and  perish  from  debility ;  and  thus  that  much 
life  is  wasted.  Charity  is  long-sighted,  selfishness  is  short-sighted. 
And  yet,  so  defective  is  our  social  constitution,  that  a  man  may 
be  long-sighted  in  using  his  neighbor  for  his  own  ends.  Thus 
doctors, — who  are  short-sighted  when  they  take  their  own  physic, 
which  they  seldom  do, — are  long-sighted  when  they  give  it  to 
their  patients ;  for  the  more  of  it  these  take,  the  oftene  r  the  doc- 
tor is  called.  It  were  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  parsons  are 
long-sighted  because  they  set  their  minds  so  much  upon  the  next 
world  ;  their  long-sightedness  consists  in  directing  other  people's 
thoughts  to  that  quarter,  while  from  the  super-mundane  specta- 
tors they  draw  the  wherewithal  to  be  content  with  this. — Lawyers 
are  short-sighted  when  they  encourage  litigation ;  the  long- 
sighted know  that  the  perverted  passions  of  civilized  men  will 
bring  grist  enough  to  their  mill  without  their  stir. — Tailors  intend 
to  be  long-sighted  when  they  stitch  on  your  buttons  instead  of 
sewing  them. — The  man  who  sells  rum  is  short-sighted,  but  less 
so  than  he  who  drinks  it. — Authors  are  very  short-sighted  when 
they  write  to  please  the  public,  instead  of  writing  to  please  the 
truth. — Expedients  are  short-sighted,  principles  long-sighted ; 
and  notwithstanding  the  apparent  prosperity  of  some  liars,  nothing 
is  so  long-sighted  as  truth. 

In  the  plainest  of  Wordsworth's  many  hundred  sonnets  there  is 
more  or  less  of  the  fragrant  essence  of  high  humanity. 

To  write  a  good  book  on  any  subject  requires  the  "  instinct  of 
the  beautiful." 


FRAGMENTS.  179 

"  You  cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon  :"  nay,  you  cannot  serve 
yourself  and  Mammon. 

To  weave  the  wondrous  form  wherewith  life  invests  itself  in 
humanity,  the  heart  works  ceaselessly,  and  every  organ,  member, 
part  and  particle  of  the  living  frame  works,  each  joyfully  in  its 
sphere,  in  unison  with  the  heart,  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
common  fabric.  But  a  continuation  and  extension  of  the  uncon- 
scious labor  of  the  heart  and  lungs  is  the  conscious  work  of  the 
head  and  hand  of  man,  whose  end  is,  to  feed,  to  clothe,  to  lodge, 
to  develop,  to  delight  his  body  and  his  mind.  All  labor,  the  un- 
conscious and  the  conscious,  is  but  life  methodized,  that  is,  life 
made  more  living,  more  intelligent,  and  thence  more  productive. 
And  thus  labor,  which  is  the  condition  and  result  of  life,  becomes 
the  means  of  its  perpetuation,  its  extension,  its  elevation.  All 
labor  may  be  delightful ;  and  as,  the  healthier  the  body  is,  the 
more  joyfully  and  thoroughly  the  heart  and  its  allies  perform  their 
unconscious  work,  so  in  a  healthy  social  organization  all  labor, 
the  greatest  and  the  least,  ceasing  to  be  repulsive  and  becoming 
attractive  and  delightful,  would  be  proportionately  productive.  A 
consummation  this  not  barely  most  devoutly  to  be  wished,  but 
most  surely  to  be  accomplished,  by  that  high  labor  which  the  in- 
tellect exalted  by  love  and  faith  is  equal  to  performing. 

The  ideas  of  eternity  and  infinity  are  innate  in  the  human 
mind  as  attractions  towards  perfection,  as  indications  and  promises 
of  incalculable  elevation. 

The  subjects  of  old  European  Monarchies  inherit  from  the  past 
such  a  load  of  debt,  of  slow-paced  customs,  of  lazy  monopolies, 
and  other  cold  drawbacks  from  behind,  that  they  cannot  move 
forward.  Instead  of  briskly  turning  the  now,  the  to-day,  to  rich 
account,  they  have  to  work  first  against  yesterday,  to  stave  it  off 


180  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

with  its  manifold  pressure.  Hence,  half  the  laborers  of  England, 
Germany,  France,  earn  not  for  themselves  food,  clothing  and 
lodging  enough  to  keep  out  hunger  and  cold.  Their  hands  are 
mortgaged  to  the  past.  Their  existence  has  no  new  life  in  it ;  it 
is  a  lingering  perpetuation  of  the  past.  Whereas  we  of  demo- 
cratic America  let  not  the  past  accumulate  upon  us.  For  us, 
sufficient  for  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof.  We  make  clean  work 
as  we  go.  We  keep  the  present  lively,  because  we  are  ever 
snatching  a  new  present  from  across  the  confines  of  the  future. 
We  are  always  "  going  ahead  ;"  that  is,  building  up  the  Future 
out  of  itself  and  not  out  of  the  past.  We  don't  wait  for  the  Future, 
we  rush  in  pursuit  of  it. 

The  higher  the  sphere  the  greater  the  freedom.  Mineral, 
vegetable,  animal ;  zoophite,  reptile,  quadruped,  man  ;  savage, 
barbarian,  civilized.  Each  of  these  series  is  an  ascension  towards 
freedom,  the  highest  being  the  freest. 

Religion,  above  all  things,  needs  to  be  steadied  and  purified  by 
science  and  culture.  « 

Classification  is  the  highest  function  of  intellect ;  it  brings  order 
out  of  chaos.  It  is  both  analysis  and  synthesis.  The  higher  the 
department  of  universal  life,  the  keener  of  course  must  be  the  in- 
tellectual insight  that  could  detect  its  organic  law.  To  order 
minerals  is  feebler  work  than  to  order  morals.  The  man  who 
classes,  needs  to  have  a  kind  of  creative  mastery  over  his  material. 
He  intellectually  recreates  it.  The  savage,  who  has  mastery 
over  nothing,  but  is  a  brute  serf  of  Nature,  has  scarcely  any 
power  of  classification. 

Thought  is  ever  unfolding.     A  good  thinker  keeps  thinking. 
As  with  the  body  'tis  a  sign  of  derangement,  if  the  action  of 


FRAGMENTS.  181 

any  organ  makes  itself  felt,  the  motions  of  the  heart,  for  exam- 
ple, or  the  laboring  of  the  stomach  ;  so  too  with  the  mind,  the 
protracted  consciousness  of  any  feeling  is  unhealthy,  whether  it 
be  the  religious  sentiment  or  the  lust  of  revenge. 

Who  fears  the  forces  of  Nature  ?  We  use  them  for  our  profit : 
the  stronger  they  are,  the  more  profitable  we  make  them.  The 
passions  of  man,  all  his  feelings,  impulses  and  motives  to  action, 
are  similarly  innocent  and  available.  They  are  the  strongest 
forces  and  instruments  in  Nature.  We  must  learn  only  to  use 
them. 


We  must  be  realists,  not  dreamers ;  we  must  found  our  con- 
victions on  facts,  not  on  imaginations  which  are  dream-like. 
Nothing  is  nobler  than  facts.  Facts  are  God's  ;  imaginations  are 
man's,  and  are  only  then  god-like,  when  they  enfold  coming  or 
possible  facts,  or  adorn  existing  ones. 

The  spokes  of  the  wheel  are  helpless  until  bound  together  by 
the  rim. 


Christianity  promises  such  moral  splendors,  that  men,  refusing 
to  credit  these  as  an  earthly  possibility,  translate  its  consumma- 
tions to  the  super-mundane  sphere.  Priestcraft  has  always  fos- 
tered this  incredulity,  which  opens  to  it  the  imagination  as  its 
work-field,  where  the  tillage  is  much  lighter  than  on  a  tangible 
soil.  It  is  easier  to  saw  air  than  to  saw  wood  ;  easier  to  put  the 
wretched  off  with  sanctimonious  assurances  of  celestial  compen- 
sations, than  to  wrestle  with  earthly  ills,  and  by  wisely  opposing, 
end  them  ;  easier  to  preach  of  Heaven  to  come,  than  to  put  hand 
to  work  to  drive  off  a  present  hell.  The  conscientious  pastor 
knows,  how  almost  fruitless  a  task  it  is,  when,  not  content  with 
stale  ritual  repetitions  and  wordy  exhortations,  he  labors  practi- 


182  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

cally  to  purge  and  vivify  his  flock.  With  all  his  toil  he  brings 
little  to  pass.  His  theological  tools  are  dull ;  what  steel  there 
ever  was  in  them  is  worn  off. 


Nature  rejects  with  contempt  an  hereditary  aristocracy. 

In  our  present  mis-organized  society,  helplessness  is  the  con- 
dition, not  of  nine  in  ten,  but  of  all.  The  wisest  and  wealthiest 
are  encompassed  by  exposure,  dangers,  calamity.  Against  earthly 
troubles,  resignation  and  ultra-terrene  expectation  are  a  poor  re- 
source, as  illogical  as  meagre.  What  is  done  on  earth  is  of  our 
own  making  or  allowing.  Heaven  is  just,  and  inflicts  naught. 
It  lets  us  do  for  our  good  or  evil,  and  when  we  help  ourselves, 
helps  us.  Put  we  our  shoulders  to  the  wheel,  the  Hercules  is 
instantly  at  our  side.  We  make  the  beds  we  lie  in  ;  not  you  or 
I,  but  you  and  I,  and  all  the  you's  and  I's  that  surround  us. 
Against  our  needs  and  woes,  you  or  I  can  do  little,  but  you  and 
I,  everything.  Association,  which  has  made  railroads  and  banks, 
can  do  much  better  and  higher. 

As  its  roots  spread  and  strike  down,  the  tree  expands  and 
mounts.  Thoughts  and  aims  are  only  then  sound,  when  their 
roots  are  firm  in  the  earth.  The  rest  is  brain-sick  fancy,  con- 
ceited delusion.  The  earth  and  our  bodies  are  for  the  mind  and 
heart  to  grow  and  revel  in.  When  we  would  sacrifice  the  God- 
given  earth  and  its  joys  to  a  tinsel  manufacture  which  we  mis- 
call Heaven,  we  stigmatize  Providence,  and  supplant  it  with  our 
puling  fantasies. 

But  people  do  not  so  sacrifice  ;  they  only  make  themselves 
bootlessly  wretched  by  vainly  striving  to  do  so.  This  short- 
sighted effort  is  for  the  behoof  of  the  priest,  who,  three  times  in 
lour,  is  but  a  broker  who  drives  a  belly-filling  business  by  ex- 


FRAGMENTS.  183 

changing  drafts  on  the  next  world  for  coin  that  buys  the  comforts 
of  this. 


There  is  nothing  that  some  people  are  more  ignorant  of,  than 
their  own  ignorance. 


The  classification  of  England's  inhabitants  into  nobility,  gen- 
try, shop-keepers,  mechanics,  laborers,  paupers,  is  as  consonant  to 
nature  as  would  be  the  classing  of  animals  according  to  weight 
and  color. 

Fourier  undertakes  to  make  all  men  honest.  No  wonder  that 
he  is  looked  upon  as  a  visionary,  who  promises  so  stupendous  a 
revolution  in  human  affairs. 


An   unsightly  object  is  an  old  face  haunted  by  the  vices  of 
youth. 


Credulity  is  a  characteristic  of  weakness.  Imagination  pre- 
cedes Reason.  Fancies  are  a  loose  substitute  for  knowledge. 
Hence  the  unreasonable  creeds  of  young  nations,  fastened  upon 
them  by  priestcraft,  whose  criminal  practice  it  has  been,  and  is 
still,  by  terrifying  the  imagination  to  subjugate  the  reason.  The 
first-born  of  priestcraft  was  the  Devil. 

Priests  are  ever  shuffling  over  the  leaves  of  old  books :  the 
life  there  may  be  in  these  they  petrify  with  their  own  hardness : 
they  seek  God  in  traditions  and  hearsays,  and  the  dim  utterances 
of  the  livers  of  old  :  they  abide  by  the  outgivings  of  obsolete 
mystics  :  they  re-assert  the  beliefs  of  antiquated  seers  :  the  ecs- 
tasies of  feverish  hallucination  they  endorse  as  imperative  dog- 
mas. They  grovel  and  grope  in  the  darkness  and  dawn,  to  find 
stakes  planted  by  the  crude  beginners  of  the  world,  to  the  which, 


184  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

by  grossest  cords,  they  would  bind  to  the  past  our  forward-reach, 
ing  souls.  The  future,  too,  they  suborn  and  would  monopolize : 
with  their  contemptible  Heavens  and  ridiculous  Hells,  they  would 
captivate  our  hopes  and  our  fears.  Out  of  imaginations  that  are 
shallow,  unhallowed,  meagre,  foul,  they  impudently  construct 
both  the  past  and  the  future.  That  they  may  be  paid  for  fur- 
nishing  rush-lights,  they  cultivate  darkness,  and  be-curtain  with 
creeds  and  dogmas  the  human  tabernacle  against  the  sun  of  truth. 
Those  who  appeal  to  the  God  of  light,  and  to  the  upright  soul 
of  man,  against  their  sophistications  and  usurpations,  they  cru- 
cify. Audaciously  they  dub  themselves  the  ministers  of  God, 
they  who  are  especially  not  God's  ministers  but  men's.  Spir- 
itual insight,  moral  elevation,  rich  sympathies,  these  are  the 
tokens  whereby  the  divinely  ordained  are  signalized.  Are  can- 
didates for  any  priesthood  admitted  or  rejected  by  these  signs  ? 
Not  by  inborn  superiorities  of  sensibility,  but  by  acquired  pro- 
ficiencies, by  intellectual  adoptions  are  they  tested.  This  creed, 
these  articles,  this  ritual, — do  they  accept  these,  then  are  they 
accepted.  To  be  learned  in  humanity,  a  living  learning,  which 
the  large  heart  imbibes  without  labor,  this  is  not  their  title  ;  but 
to  be  learned  in  theology,  a  lifeless  learning,  which  the  small 
head  can  acquire  by  methodical  effort.  They  would  live  and 
make  others  live  by  the  dead  letter,  and  not  by  the  living  law. 
The  dead  letter  is  the  carcass  of  what  has  been,  or  what  is  ima- 
gined to  have  been.  The  living  law  is  what  is  :  it  is  not  written, 
it  is  forever  being  written  on  the  heart  of  man  by  the  hand  ot 
God. 

What  by  defect  of  harmonious  organization  Christendom  waste 
of  nervous  power  would  vitalize  a  planet. 


Machinery  and  the  useful  Arts  are  man's  inventions  for  indus 
trial  helps.     The  Fine  Arts  he  creates  for  aesthetic  helps. 


FRAGMENTS.  185 

Disproportion  is  disqualification.  Too  much  is  unwieldy :  too 
little  is  feebleness.  A  giant  is  of  no  more  use  than  a  dwarf.  A 
man  seven  feet  high  finds  his  extra  foot  a  daily  incumbrance. 
A  man  of  more  head  than  heart  is  dangerous :  a  man  of  more 
heart  than  head  is  a  victim. 

Every  deed  of  man  is  preceded  by  a  thought.  In  the  most 
trivial  movement,  immaterial  action  is  the  antecedent  and  pro- 
ducer of  the  material.  Every  result  brought  about  by  human 
contrivance  and  will  is  an  embodied  finishing  whose  beginning  is 
a  spiritual  seed  sown  in  the  brain.  No  grossest  act  but  existed 
first  in  thought  before  it  took  body.  Without  thinking,  a  man 
would  go  without  his  dinner.  Every  act  proves  a  precedent 
thought.  This  is  an  absolute  law  of  the  mind.  As  all  human 
acts  pre-suppose  human  thought,  so  superhuman  acts  pre-suppose 
superhuman  thought.  A  man  is  a  superhuman  act,  and  the  ex- 
istence of  a  man  demonstrates  the  pre-existence  of  God. 


THE   END. 


SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE 


AMBLESIDE,  WESTMORELAND  COUNTY,  £NGLAND, 
July  29th,  1840,  Wednesday  Evening 

MY  DEAR : 

Three  weeks  since,  I  was  in  America :  I  am  now  writing  to 
you  from  an  English  village,  distant  but  a  mile  from  the  dwelling 
of  Wordsworth.  Between  noon  and  evening  we  have  come  to-day 
ninety  miles;  first  by  railroad  from  Liverpool  to  Lancaster, 
where  we  took  outside  seats  on  a  coach  to  Kendall,  and  thence 
by  postchaise  fourteen  miles  to  Ambleside.  An  American  just 
landed  in  England  wants  more  than  his  two  eyes  to  look  at  the 
beautiful,  green  "  old  country."  For  several  miles  the  road  lay 
along  the  bank  of  Lake  Windermere,  sleeping  in  the  evening 
shadows  at  the  feet  of  its  mountains,  whose  peaks  were  shrouded 
in  mist,  except  that  of  Nabscar,  on  whose  southern  side  near  its 
base  stands  the  Poet's  house. 

So  soon  as  we  were  established  in  the  clean  little  inn,  I  walked 
out,  about  eight  o'clock,  on  the  road  that  passes  Wordsworth's 
door.  Meeting  a  countryman,  when  I  had  been  afoot  ten  or  fifteen 
minutes,  I  asked  him, — "  How  far  is  it  to  Mr.  Wordsworth's  ?" 
"  Only  a  quarter  of  a  mile."  The  wood-skirted  road  wound 
among  gentle  hills,  that  on  one  side  ran  quickly  up  into  mountains, 
so  that  the  house  was  not  in  view ;  and  having  resolved  not  to 
seek  him  till  to-morrow,  I  turned  back  with  the  tall  laborer,  who 
told  me  he  was  working  at  Wordsworth's.  We  passed  a  lady 
and  gentleman  on  foot,  who  both  gave  a  friendly  salutation  to  my 
companion.  "  That,"  said  he,  "  is  Mr.  Wordsworth's  daughter." 

2 


SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


Thursday  Evening. 

This  morning,  at  ten,  Nabscar  still  wore  his  nightcap  of  mist, 
but  as  the  wind  then  hauled,  in  sailor's  phrase,  to  the  north  from 
the  southwest,  which  is  the  rainy  quarter  here,  he  was  robed 
before  noon  in  sunshine,  to  welcome  on  his  breast  a  far-travelled 
homager. 

I  spent  an  hour  to-day  with  Wordsworth.  His  look,  talk,  and 
bearing,  are  just  what  a  lover  of  his  works  would  wish  to  find 
them.  His  manner  is  simple,  earnest,  manly.  The  noble  head, 
large  Roman  nose,  deep  voice,  and  tall  spare  figure,  make  up  an 
exterior  that  well  befits  him.  He  talked  freely  on  topics  that  natu- 
rally came  up  on  the  occasion.  He  proposed  that  we  should 
walk  out  into  his  grounds.  What  a  site  for  a  poet's  abode  !  One 
more  beautiful  the  earth  could  scarcely  offer.  A  few  acres  give 
shifting  views  of  the  Paradise  about  him,  embracing  the  two  lakes 
of  Windermere  and  Grasmere.  Would  that  you  could  have 
heard  him  sum  up  in  hearty  English  the  characteristics  of  the 
bounteous  scene  !  We  passed  a  small  field  of  newly-cut  hay, 
which  laborers  were  turning  ; — "  I  have  been  at  work  there  this 
morning,"  said  Wordsworth,  "  and  heated  myself  more  than  was 
prudent."  In  the  garden  a  blackbird  ran  across  our  path  :  "  I 
like  birds  better  than  fruit,"  said  he ;  "  they  eat  up  my  fruit,  but 
repay  me  with  their  songs."  By  those  who,  like  you,  appreciate 
Wordsworth,  these  trifles  will  be  prized  as  significant  of  his 
habits.  I  would  not  record  them,  did  I  believe  that  himself, — 
with  knowledge  of  the  feelings  which  to  us  make  them  valuable,— 
would  regard  the  record  as  a  violation  of  the  sacred  privacy  of 
his  home.  A  literary  caterer  might  have  seized  upon  much  that 
would  better  have  served  a  gossiping  hireling's  purpose. 

SATURDAY,  August  1st,  1840. 

Yesterday  evening  we  spent  three  hours  at  Rydal  Mount,  the 
name  not  of  the  mountain  near  whose  base  is  Wordsworth's 


WORDSWORTH. 


dwelling,  but  of  the  dwelling  itself.  We  went,  by  invitation, 
early.  Wordsworth,  soon  after  we  arrived,  familiarly  took  me 
through  the  back  gate  of  his  enclosure,  to  point  out  the  path  by 
which  I  might  ascend  to  the  top  of  Nabscar, — a  feat  I  purposed 
attempting  the  next  day.  On  our  return,  he  proposed  a  visit  to 
Rydal  Fall,  a  few  hundred  yards  from  his  door  in  Rydal  Park. 
On  learning  that  five  weeks  since  we  had  stood  before  Niagara, 
an  exclamation  burst  from  his  lips,  as  if  the  sublime  spectacle 
were  suddenly  brought  near  to  him.  "  But,  come,"  said  he,  after 
a  moment,  "  I  am  not  afraid  to  show  you  Rydal  Fall,  though  you 
have  so  lately  seen  Niagara."  As  for  part  of  the  way  he  walked 
before  us  in  his  thick  shoes,  his  large  head  somewhat  inclined 
forward,  occasionally  calling  our  looks  to  tree  or  shrub,  I  had 
him,  as  he  doubtless  is  in  his  solitary  rambles  for  hours  daily,  in 
habitual  meditation,  greeting  as  he  passes  many  a  flower  and 
sounding  bough,  and  pausing  at  times  from  self-communion,  to 
bare  his  mind  to  the  glories  of  sky  and  earth  which  ennoble  his 
chosen  abode. 

At  the  end  of  our  walk  a  short  descent  brought  us  to  the  door 
of  a  small,  stone,  wood-embowered  structure,  the  vestibule,  as  it 
were,  to  the  temple.  Entering,  the  waterfall  was  before  us, 
beheld  through  a  large  regular  oblong  opening  or  window  which 
made  a  frame  to  the  natural  picture.  The  fall  was  not  of  more 
than  twenty-five  feet,  and  the  stream  only  a  large  brook,  but  from 
the  happiest  conjunction  of  water,  rock  and  foliage  ;  of  color, 
form,  sound  and  silvan  still  life  ;  resulted  a  scene,  decked  by 
nature  so  choicely,  and  with  such  delicate  harmony,  that  you  felt 
yourself  in  one  of  Beauty's  most  perfect  abiding-places.  The 
deep  voice  of  Wordsworth  mingled  at  intervals  with  the  sound  of 
the  fall.  We  left  the  spot  to  return  to  his  house.  The  evening 
was  calm  and  sunny ;  we  were  in  an  English  Park  in  the  bosom 
of  mountains ;  we  had  come  from  a  spot  sanctified  by  Beauty, 
and  Wordsworth  walked  beside  us. 


SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


The  walls  of  the  drawing-room  and  library,  connected  by  a 
door,  in  which,  with  the  affable  kindness  of  a  refined  gentlewo- 
man, Mrs.  Wordsworth  received  ourselves  and  a  few  other  guests, 
were  covered  with  books  and  pictures.  Wordsworth  showed  me 
many  editions  of  the  British  Poets.  He  put  into  my  hands  a  copy 
of  the  first  edition  of  Paradise  Lost,  given  him  by  Charles  Lamb. 
He  spoke  copiously,  and  in  terms  of  admiration,  of  Alston,  whom 
he  had  known  well.  In  connection  with  Alston,  he  mentioned 
his  "  friend  Coleridge."  The  opportunity  thus  offered  of  leading 
him  to  speak  of  his  great  compeer,  was  marred  by  one  of  the 
company  giving  another  turn  to  the  conversation.  Wordsworth, 
throughout  the  evening,  was  in  a  fine  mood.  His  talk  was  clear 
and  animated ;  at  times  humorous  or  narrative.  He  narrated 
several  lively  incidents  with  excellent  effect.  We  sat  in  the 
long  English  twilight  till  past  nine  o'clock. 

SUNDAY  MORNING,  August  2d,  1840. 

Yesterday  was  pleasantly  filled  in  making  an  excursion  to 
Colistone  Lake,  in  rowing  on  Windermere,  and  in  strolling  in  the 
evening  through  the  meadows  around  Ambleside.  At  every 
pause  in  our  walk,  the  aspect  of  the  landscape  varied,  under  the 
control  of  the  chief  feature  of  the  scenery,  the  encircling  moun- 
tains with  their  vast  company  of  shadows,  which,  as  unconsciously 
changing  your  position  you  shift  the  point  of  view,  open  or  close 
gorges  and  valleys,  and  hide  or  reveal  their  own  tops,  producing 
the  effect  of  a  moving  panorama. 

But  a  week  since,  we  were  on  the  ocean. — a  month  since,  in 
the  new  world, — now,  on  the  beaten  sod  of  the  old,  young  Ameri- 
sans  enjoying  old  England.  Every  object  within  sight,  raised  by 
the  hand  of  man,  looks  touched  with  antiquity ;  the  grey  stone  wall 
with  its  coping  of  moss,  the  cottage  ivy-screened,  the  Saxon 
church  tower.  Even  what  is  new,  hasn't  a  new  look.  The  modern 
mansion  is  mellowed  by  architecture  and  tint  into  keeping  with  its 


RYDAL  CHURCH. 


older  neighbors.  To  be  old  here,  is  to  be  respectable,  and  time- 
honored  is  the  epithet  most  coveted.  You  see  no  sign  of  the 
doings  of  yesterday  or  yesteryear :  the  new  is  careful  of  obtruding 
itself,  and  comes  into  the  world  under  matronage  of  the  old.  But 
the  footprint  of  age  is  not  traced  in  rust  and  decay.  We  are  in 
free  and  thriving  England,  where  Time's  accumulations  are 
shaped  by  a  busy,  confident,  sagacious  hand,  man  co-working 
with  Nature  at  the  "  ceaseless  loom  of  Time,"  so  that  little  be 
wasted  and  little  misspent.  The  English  have  a  strong  sympathy 
with  rural  nature.  The  capabilities  of  the  landscape  are  de- 
veloped and  assisted  with  a  loving  and  judicious  eye,  and  the 
beautiful  effects  are  visible  not  merely  in  the  lordly  domain  or 
secluded  pleasure-ground,  where  a  single  mind  brings  about  a 
pre-determined  end,  but  in  the  general  aspect  of  the  land.  The 
thatched  cottage,  the  broad  castle,  the  simple  lawn,  the  luxurious 
park,  the  scattered  hamlet,  the  compact  borough,  all  the  features 
which  make  up  the  physiognomy  of  woody,  mossy,  rain-washed, 
England,  harmonize  with  nature  and  with  one  another. 

SUNDAY  AFTERNOON,  2  o'clock. 

We  walked  this  morning  to  Rydal  Church,  which  is  within 
almost  a  stone's  throw  of  Wordsworth's  dwelling.  Through  a 
cloudless  sky  and  the  Sabbath  stillness,  the  green  landscape 
looked  like  a  corner  of  Eden.  In  the  small  simple  church  there 
were  not  more  than  sixty  persons,  the  congregation,  as  Words- 
worth told  us  afterwards,  consisting  of  fourteen  families.  When 
the  service  was  over,  Wordsworth,  taking  us  one  under  each  arm, 
led  us  up  to  his  house.  After  a  short  visit  we  took  our  final  leave. 

In  these  three  days,  I  have  spent  several  hours  at  different 
times  with  Wordsworth.  I  have  listened  to  his  free  and  cordial 
talk,  walked  with  him,  beheld  the  beautiful  landscape  of  West- 
moreland with  the  aidance  of  his  familiar  eye,  and  have  been  the 
object  of  his  hospitality,  more  grateful  to  me  than  would  be  that 


SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


of  his  sovereign.  The  purpose  of  our  visit  to  Ambleside  being 
accomplished,  we  leave  this  in  half  an  hour. 

OXFORD,  WEDNESDAY  MORNINO,  August  5th,  1840. 

A  glance  at  the  map  of  England  will  show  you  what  a  flight 
we  've  made  since  Sunday.  For  most  of  the  way  't  was  literally 
a  flight,  being  chiefly  by  steam.  Yet  have  we  had  time  to  tarry 
on  the  road,  and  give  ourselves  up  tranquilly  without  hurry  to 
deep  and  gentle  impressions. 

Leaving  Ambleside  on  Sunday  afternoon,  our  road  ran  for  ten 
miles  along  the  eastern  shore  of  Lake  Windermere,  which  lay 
shining  at  our  side,  or  sparkling  through  the  foliage  that  shades 
the  neat  dwellings  on  its  border.  From  the  mountains  of  the 
lake  region  we  passed  suddenly  into  the  flats  of  Lancashire,  and 
at  dark  reached  Lancaster,  too  late  to  get  a  good  view  of,  what 
we  had  however  seen  as  we  went  up  from  Liverpool,  the  castle, 
founded  by 

"  Old  John  of  Gaunt,  time-honored  Lancaster." 

Between  nine  and  three  o'clock  on  Monday,  a  railroad  bore  us 
from  Lancaster,  on  the  north-west  coast,  to  Coventry  (which  Fal- 
staff  marched  through)  in  Warwickshire,  the  very  heart  of  Eng- 
land. We  passed  through,  but  did  not  stop  at  Birmingham.  The 
sight  and  thought  of  these  great  overworked  underfed  workshops 
are  oppressive.  An  invalid  has  not  the  nerves  to  confront  the 
gaunt  monster,  Poverty,  that  dragging  along  its  ghastly  offspring, 
Squalor  and  Hunger,  stalks  so  strangely  through  this  abundant 
land. 

There  is  nothing  like  a  "locomotive"  for  giving  cne  a  first 
vivid  view  of  a  country.  Those  few  hours  left  on  my  brain  a 
clear  full  image  of  the  face  of  England,  such  as  can  be  had  by 
no  other  means.  Town,  river,  village,  cottage,  castle,  set  all  in 
their  native  verdure,  are  so  approximated  by  rapidity  of  move- 


WARWICK  CASTLE. 


merit,  as  to  be  easily  enclosed  by  the  memory  in  one  frame.  The 
ten  miles  between  Coventry  and  Warwick,  a  stage-coach  carried 
us  on  its  top,  passing  through  Kenilworth  village,  and  giving  us 
a  glimpse  of  the  famous  ruins. 

Beautiful  to  behold  is  England  on  a  sunny  summer's  day  ;  so 
clean,  so  verdant,  so  full  of  quiet  life,  so  fresh,  wearing  so  lightly 
the  garland  of  age.  What  a  tree ; — that  cottage,  how  fragrant 
it  looks  through  its  flowers ; — the  turf  about  that  church  has  been 
green  for  ages.  Here  is  a  thatched  hamlet,  its  open  doors  lighted 
with  rosy  faces  at  the  sound  of  our  wheels  ; — this  avenue  of  oaks 
sets  the  imagination  to  building  a  mansion  at  the  end  of  it.  What 
town  is  that  clustered  around  yon  huge  square  tower  ?  and  the 
ear  welcomes  a  familiar  name,  endeared  by  genius  to  the  Ame- 
rican heart.  Such  is  a  half  hour  of  one's  progress  through  time- 
enriched  England,  the  mother  of  Shakspeare  and  Cromwell,  of 
Milton  and  Newton. 

Yesterday  morning  we  walked  to  Warwick  Castle,  which  lies 
just  without  the  town.  There  stands  the  magnificent  feudal 
giant,  shorn  of  its  terrors ;  its  high  embattled  turrets  dis- 
armed by  Time's  transmuting  inventions ;  its  grim  frowns 
converted  to  graceful  lineaments  ;  its  hoarse  challenges  to  gentle 
greetings  ;  there  it  stands,  grand  and  venerable,  on  the  soft  green 
bank  of  Avon,  guarded  by  man's  protecting  arm  against  the  level- 
ling blasts  of  antiquity,  not  less  a  token  of  present  grandeur  than 
a  monument  of  former  glories.  As  slowly  as  the  impatient 
attendant  would  let  us,  we  loitered  through  the  broad  lofty  halls 
and  comfortable  apartments,  from  whose  walls  flash  the  bright 
heads  of  Vandyke.  Through  the  deep  windows  you  look  down 
into  the  Avon,  which  flows  by  the  castle  and  through  the  noble 
park.  We  lingered  on  the  green  lawn,  enclosed  within  the  castle 
walls,  and  in  the  smooth  grounds  without  them,  and  we  hung  about 
the  towers  of  the  dark  old  pile  until  noon,  when  we  walked  back 
to  the  inn,  having  enjoyed  without  drawback,  and  with  more  than 


SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


fulfilment  of  cherished  expectations,  one  of  the  grandest  specta- 
cles old  Europe  has  to  offer. 

At  one  we  were  approaching  Stratford  on  Avon,  distant  eight 
miles  from  Warwick.  Fifteen  years  since  I  was  on  the  same 
ground.  But  Shakspeare  was  to  me  then  but  a  man,  to  whom 
greatness  had  been  decreed  by  the  world's  judgment.  I  was  not 
of  an  age  to  have  verified  for  myself  his  titles :  I  had  not  real- 
ized by  contemplation  the  immensity  of  his  power :  my  soul  had 
not  been  fortified  by  direct  sympathy  with  his  mighty  nature. 
But  now  I  felt  that  I  was  near  the  most  sacred  spot  in  Europe, 
and  I  was  disappointed  at  the  absence  of  emotion  in  my  mind. 
Here  Shakspeare  was  born,  and  here  he  lies  buried.  We  stood 
above  his  bones :  on  the  marble  slab  at  our  feet,  we  read  the 
lines  touching  their  rest,  invoking  a  curse  on  him  who  should 
disturb  them.  We  sat  down  on  a  bench  within  a  few  feet  of  the 
sacred  dust.  We  walked  out  by  a  near  door  past  tomb-stones 
to  the  edge  of  the  Avon.  The  day  was  serene  and  bright.  We 
returned,  and  gazed  again  on  the  simple  slab.  'Twas  not  till 
we  had  quitted  the  church,  and  were  about  to  pass  out  of  the 
yard,  that  a  full  consciousness  of  the  holiness  of  the  place  arose 
in  me.  For  an  instant  I  seemed  to  feel  the  presence  of  Shak- 
speare. We  walked  slowly  back  towards  the  inn.  In  this  path 
he  has  walked ;  at  that  sunny  corner  he  has  lounged ; — but 
'twas  like  clutching  at  corporeal  substance  in  a  dream,  to  try  to 
call  up  a  familiar  image  of  Shakspeare.  Objects  around  looked 
unsubstantial ;  what  the  senses  beheld  wore  the  aspect  of  a  vision ; 
the  only  reality  was  the  thought  of  Shakspeare,  which  wrapped 
the  mind  in  a  vague  magical  sensation. 

Between  three  and  four  o'clock  we  were  on  the  way  to  Oxford, 
smoothly  rolling  over  an  undulating  road,  under  a  cloudless  sky, 
through  the  teeming,  tree-studded  fields.  We  passed  through 
Woodstock,  and  for  several  miles  skirted  the  Park  of  Blenheim. 
'Twas  dark  ere  we  entered  Oxford.  The  coach  whirled  us  past 


OXFORD 


square  upon  square  of  majestic  piles  and  imposing  shapes,  and 
we  alighted  at  the  inn,  suddenly  and  strongly  impressed  with  the 
architectural  magnificence  of  Oxford.  We  are  going  out  to  get 
a  view  by  sunlight  ere  we  set  off  for  London,  which  we  are  to 
reach  before  night. 

LONDON,  August  10th,  1840. 

From  the  top  of  the  coach,  which  carried  us  eight  miles  to  the 
Great  Western  Railroad,  I  looked  back  upon  the  majtdtic  crown 
of  towers  and  spires,  wherewith, — as  if  to  honor  by  a  unique  prodi- 
gality of  its  gifts,  the  high,  long  enduring  seat  of  learning, — the 
genius  of  architecture  has  encircled  the  brow  of  Oxford.  At  a 
speed  of  thirty  to  forty-five  miles  an  hour,  we  shot  down  to 
Windsor,  where  we  again  quitted  the  railroad  for  a  post-chaise, 
wishing  to  enter  London  more  tranquilly  than  by  steam. 

By  the  road  from  Windsor  it  is  hard  to  say  when  you  do  enter 
London,  being  encased  by  houses  miles  before  you  reach  Picca- 
dilly. Some  cities  are  begirt  with  walls,  some  with  public  walks, 
some  merely  with  water ;  but  London,  it  may  be  said  without 
solecism,  is  surrounded  by  houses.  At  last  the  "  West  End  " 
opens  grandly  to  view  through  Hyde  Park.  What  a  look  of 
vastness,  of  wealth,  of  solid  grandeur!  We  are  passing  the 
house  of  Wellington,  and  there  to  the  right,  across  the  Green 
Park  and  St.  James's,  are  the  towers  of  Westminster  Abbey.  We 
are  in  the  largest  and  wealthiest  city  of  the  world,  the  capital  of 
the  most  vast  and  powerful  empire  the  earth  has  ever  known. 

We  can  now  give  but  a  few  days  to  London,  barely  enough  to 
get  a  notion  of  its  material  dimensions  and  outward  aspects. 
Size,  activity,  power,  opulence,  fill  with  confused  images  the 
wearied  brain  when  the  stranger's  laborious  day  is  over.  The 
streets  of  London  seem  interminable ;  its  private  palaces  are 
countless  ;  its  population  consists  of  many  multitudes.  Through 
its  avenues  flow  in  counter-currents,  from  morn  till  midnight, 
2* 


10  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


the  streams  which  send  and  receive  from  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
the  life-blood  of  a  commerce,  which  all  climes  and  continents 
nourish.  From  within  its  precincts  issue  words,  that,  sped  to  the 
four  quarters  of  the  globe,  are  laws  to  more  than  one  hundred 
millions  of  men.  Thither  are  the  ears  of  states  directed  ;  and 
when  in  the  Senate,  that  for  ages  has  had  its  seat  in  this  still 
growing  capital,  the  prime  minister  of  England  speaks,  all  the 
nations  hearken.  Of  the  wealth,  strength,  bulk,  grandeur  of  the 
realm,  London  is  the -centre  and  palpable  evidence.  See  the 
docks  in  the  morning,  and  drive  round  the  Parks  in  the  afternoon, 
and  you  behold  the  might  and  magnificence  of  Britain. 

From  this  endless  throng  I  was  withdrawn  yesterday  to  a  scene, 
a  sketch  of  which  will,  I  know,  have  for  you  especial  interest. 
1  drove  to  Highgate  Hill,  and  alighted  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Gil- 
man.  From  the  servant  who  opened  the  door  I  learnt  that  he 
had  been  dead  several  months.  Mrs.  Oilman  was  at  home.  I 
was  shown  into  a  neat  back  drawing-room,  where  sat  an  elderly 
lady  in  deep  mourning.  I  apologized  for  having  come  to  her 
house  :  it  was  my  only  means  of  getting  tidings  of  one  I  had 
known  well  many  years  before  in  Gottingen,  and  who,  I  was 
aware,  had  been  a  friend  and  pupil  of  Mr.  Coleridge  during  his 
stay  under  her  roof.  She  made  a  sign  to  the  servant  to  withdraw, 
and  then  gave  way  to  her  emotion.  "  All  gone,  all  gone  !"  were 
the  only  words  she  could  at  first  utter.  My  friend  had  been  dead 
many  years,  then  Coleridge,  and  lastly  her  husband.  I  was  much 

moved.     Mr. had  been  a  son  to  her:  to  have  been  intimate 

with  him  was  a  favorable  introduction  to  herself.  She  showed 
me  several  of  Mr.  Gilman's  books,  filled  with  notes  in  Coleridge's 
handwriting,  from  which  are  taken  many  passages  of  the  "  Re- 
mains." In  another  room  was  his  bust ;  and  in  another  a  fine 
picture  by  Alston,  given  by  him  to  his  great  friend.  She  put 
into  my  hands  a  sonnet  in  manuscript,  written  and  sent  to  her  by 


COLERIDGE.  11 


Alston,  on  the  death  of  Coleridge, — the  most  beautiful  thing  of 
the  kind  I  ever  read. 

In  the  third  story  is  the  chamber  opened  by  the  most  cordial 
and  honorable  friendship  to  the  illustrious  sufferer,  and  by  him 
occupied  for  many  years.  There  was  the  bed  whereon  he  died. 
From  the  window  I  looked  out  over  a  valley  upon  Caen  Wood. 
Here,  his  lustrous  eyes  fixed  in  devout  meditation,  Coleridge  was 
wont  to  behold  the  sunset.  Mrs.  Oilman  tired  not  of  talking  of 
him,  nor  I  of  listening.  I  thought,  how  happy,  with  all  his  cha- 
grins and  disappointments,  he  had  been  in  finding  such  friends. 
You  recollect  with  what  affection  and  hearty  thankfulness  he 
speaks  of  them.  They  could  sympathize  with  the  philosopher  and 
the  poet,  as  well  as  with  the  man.  Mrs.  Oilman's  talk  told  of 
converse  with  one  of  England's  richest  minds.  To  me  it  was  a 
bright  hour,  and  with  feelings  of  more  than  esteem  for  its  lonely 
inmate,  I  quitted  the  roof  where,  in  his  afflicted  old  age,  the  author 
of  Christabel  had  found  a  loving  shelter.  In  a  few  moments  I 
was  again  in  the  whirl  of  the  vast  metropolis.  I  shall  bear  away 
from  it  no  more  vivid  or  grateful  recollection  than  that  of  yester- 
day's visit.  Few  men  have  had  more  genius  than  Coleridge, 
more  learning,  or  more  uprightness,  and  in  the  writings  of  none 
is  there  more  soul.  His  poetry  will  live  with  his  language.  As 
a  prose  writer,  he  is  a  conscientious  seeker  of  truth,  a  luminous 
expounder  of  the  mysteries  of  life  ;  and  the  earnest  student  of 
his  pages,  without  accepting  in  full  either  his  Theology,  or  his 
Philosophy,  or  his  Politics,  finds  himself  warmed,  instructed  and 
exalted. 

LEAMINGTON,  September,  1840. 

The  day  after  the  date  of  my  last,  we  left  London  for  Leam- 
ington in  Warwickshire,  where  we  have  been  for  a  month. 
There  are  times  when  one  can  neither  write  nor  even  read,  I 
begin  to  fear  that  I  shall  not  have  many  moods  for  work  in  Eu- 


12  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

rope.  To  say  nothing  of  health,  one's  mind  is  constantly  beset 
by  superficial  temptations.  All  kinds  of  trifling  novelties  impor- 
tune the  attention.  And  even  when  settled  for  weeks  in  the  same 
lodging,  one  is  ever  possessed  by  the  feeling  of  instability. 

My  reading  at  Leamington  has  been  chiefly  of  newspapers. 
From  them,  however,  something  may  be  learnt  by  a  stranger. 
They  reflect  the  surface  of  society  ;  and  as  surfaces  mostly  take 
their  shape  and  hue  from  depths  beneath  them,  one  may  read  irj 
newspapers  somewhat  more  than  they  are  paid  for  printh^r.  Even 
the  London  "  Satirist,"  that  rankest  sewer  of  licentiousness,  has 
a  social  and  political  significance.  It  could  only  live  in  the  shade 
of  an  Aristocracy.  The  stomach  of  omnivorous  scandal  were 
alone  insufficient  to  digest  its  gross  facts  and  fabrications.  The 
Peer  is  dragged  through  a  horse-pond  for  the  sport  of  the  ple- 
beian. The  artisan  chuckles  to  see  Princes  and  Nobles  wallow- 
ing in  dirt,  in  print.  The  high  are  brought  so  low  that  the  low- 
est can  laugh  at  them  :  the  proud,  who  live  on  contempt,  are 
pulled  down  to  where  themselves  can  be  scorned  by  the  basest. 
The  wit  consists  chiefly  in  the  contrast  between  the  elevation  of 
the  game  and  the  filthiness  of  the  ammunition  wherewith  it  is 
assailed  ;  between  the  brilliancy  of  the  mark  and  the  obscurity 
of  the  marksman.  A  register  is  kept  of  Bishops,  Peeresses,  Dukes, 
Ambassadors,  charged  with  being  swindlers,  adulterers,  buffoons, 
panders,  sycophants ;  and  this  is  one  way  of  keeping  Englishmen 
in  mind  that  all  men  are  brothers.  It  is  a  weekly  sermon,  suited 
to  some  of  the  circumstances  of  the  times  and  people,  on  the  text— 
"  But  many  that  are  first  shall  be  last." 

England  looks  everywhere  aristocratical.  A  dominant  idea  in 
English  life  is  possession  by  inheritance.  Property  and  privilege 
are  nailed  by  law  to  names.  A  man,  by  force  of  mind,  rises 
from  lowliness  to  a  Dukedom  :  the  man  dies,  but  the  Dukedom 
lives,  and  lifts  into  eminence  a  dullard  perhaps,  or  a  reprobate. 
The  soul  has  departed,  and  the  body  is  unburied.  Counter  to  the 


ENGLISH  ARIS1 


order  of  nature,  the  external  confers  irwlqmv^JjJ^Jvi 
and  whereas  at  first  a  man  made  the  Dukedom,  afterwards  'tis 
the  Dukedom  that  makes  the  man.  Merit  rises,  but  leaves  be- 
hind it  generations  of  the  unmeritorious  not  only  to  feed  on  its 
gains,  but  to  possess  places  that  should  never  be  filled  but  by  the 
deserving.  In  an  hereditary  aristocracy  the  noble  families  form 
knots  on  the  trunk  of  a  nation,  drawing  to  themselves  sap  which, 
for  the  public  health,  should  be  equally  distributed.  Law  and 
custom  attach  power  and  influence  to  names  and  lands  :  whoso 
own  these,  govern,  and  so  rigid  and  cherished  are  primogeniture 
and  entail,  that  much  of  them  is  possessed  without  an  effort  or 
a  natural  claim.  The  possessor's  whole  right  is  arbitrary  and 
artificial. 

To  ascribe  the  short-comings  of  England  to  the  aristocratic 
principle,  were  as  shallow  as  to  claim  for  it  her  many  glories. 
In  her  development  it  has  played  its  part  according  to  her  consti- 
tutional temperament ;  but  her  development  has  been  richer  and 
healthier  than  that  of  her  neighbors,  because  her  aristocracy  has 
had  its  roots  in  the  people,  or  rather  because  (a  false  aristocracy 
having  been  hitherto  in  Europe  unavoidable)  her  people  have  been 
manly  and  democratic  enough  not  to  suffer  one  distinct  in  blood 
to  rear  itself  among  them.  Compare  English  with  any  other  aris- 
tocracy, and  this  in  it  is  notable  and  unique  ;  it  does  not  form  a 
caste.  It  is  not,  like  the  German,  or  Russian,  or  Italian,  a  distinct 
breed  from  that  of  the  rest  of  the  nation  ;  nay,  its  blood  is  ever 
renewed  from  the  veins  of  the  people.  This  is  the  spring  of  its 
life  ;  this  has  kept  it  in  vigor ;  this  strengthens  it  against  degene- 
racy. It  sucks  at  the  breast  of  the  mighty  multitude.  Hence  at 
bottom  it  is,  that  the  English  Peer  is  in  any  part  of  the  world  a 
higher  personage  than  the  German  Count  or  Italian  Prince.  He 
cannot  show  pedigrees  with  them,  and  this,  a  cause  of  mortification 
to  his  pride,  is  the  very  source  of  his  superiority. 

From  this  cause,  English  Aristocracy  is  less  far  removed  than 


14  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

any  other  in  Europe  from  a  genuine  Aristocracy,  or  government 
of  the  Best,  of  which,  however,  it  is  still  but  a  mockery.  It  is 
not  true  that  all  the  talent  in  the  realm  gravitates  towards  the 
House  of  Lords,  but  some  of  it  does ;  and  as  such  talent  is,  of 
course,  in  alliance  with  worldly  ambition,  the  novi  homines  in 
Parliament  are  apt  not  to  be  so  eminent  for  principle  as  for  intellect. 
Until  men  shall  be  much  purer  than  they  have  yet  been,  no  na- 
tion will,  under  any  form  of  polity,  throw  up  its  best  mm  into 
high  places.  The  working  of  the  representative  system  with  us 
has  revealed  the  fact,  that  with  free  choice  a  community  chooses 
in  the  long  run  men  who  accurately  represent  itself.  Should 
therefore  Utopia  lie  embosomed  in  our  future,  instead  of  the  pre- 
sent very  mixed  assemblage,  our  remote  posterity  may  look  for  a 
Congress  that  will  present  a  shining  level  of  various  excellence. 
Only,  that  should  so  blessed  an  era  be  in  store,  Congresses  and 
all  other  cunning  contrivances  called  governments  will  be  super- 
fluous. In  England,  in  legislation  and  in  social  life,  most  of  the 
best  places  are  filled  by  men  whose  ancestors  earned  them,  and 
not  themselves.  These  block  the  way  to  those  who,  like  their 
ancestors,  are  capable  in  a  fair  field  of  winning  eminence.  By 
inheritance  are  enjoyed  posts  demanding  talent,  liberality,  refine- 
ment— qualities  not  transmissible.  It  is  subjecting  the  spiritual 
to  the  corporeal.  It  is  setting  the  work  of  man,  Earls  and  Bish- 
ops, over  the  work  of  God,  men.  The  world  is  ever  prone  to  put 
itself  in  bondage  to  the  external :  laws  should  aim  to  counteract 
the  tendency.  Here  this  bondage  is  methodized  and  legalized. 
The  body  politic  has  got  to  be  but  feebly  organic.  Men  are 
obliged  in  every  direction  to  conform  rigidly  to  old  forms ;  to  reach 
their  end  by  mechanical  routine.  A  man  on  entering  life  finds 
himself  fenced  in  between  ancient  walls.  Every  Englishman  is 
free  relatively  to  every  other  living  Englishman,  but  is  a  slave  to 
his  forefathers.  He  must  put  his  neck  under  the  yoke  of  pre- 
scription. The  life  of  every  child  in  England  is  too  rigorously 


CARLYLE.  15 


predestined.     To  him  may  be  addressed  the  words  of  Goethe,  in 
Faust  :— 

Es  erben  sich  Gesets'  und  Rechte 

Wie  eine  ew'ge  Krankheit  fort; 

Sie  schleppen  von  Geschlecht  sich  zum  Geschlechte, 

Und  riicken  sacht  von  Ort  zu  Ort. 

Vernunft  wird  Unsinn,  Wohlthat  Plage; 

Weh  dir  dass  du  ein  Enkel  bist ! 

Vom  Rechte,  das  mit  uns  geboren  ist, 

Von  dem  ist  leider  !  nie  die  Frage.* 

This  is  a  rich  theme,  which  I  have  merely  touched.  It  is 
pregnant  too  with  comfort  to  us  with  our  unbridled  democracy. 
May  it  ever  remain  unbridled. 

PARIS,  November,  1840. 

On  the  way  from  Leamington  to  France  we  were  again  two 
days  in  London,  where  I  then  saw  at  his  house  one  of  the  master 
spirits  of  the  age,  Mr.  Carlyle.  His  countenance  is  fresh,  his 
bearing  simple,  and  his  frequent  laugh  most  hearty.  He  has  a 
wealth  of  talk,  and  is  shrewd  in  speech  as  in  print  in  detecting 
the  truth  in  spite  of  concealments,  and  letting  the  air  out  of  a 
windbeuteL  Like  the  first  meeting  across  the  seas  with  a  bounti- 
ful worldly  benefactor, — except  that  the  feeling  is  much  finer, 
and  admits  of  no  gross  admixture, — is  that  with  a  man  to  whom 
you  have  long  been  under  intellectual  obligations.  It  is  one  of 
the  heartiest  moments  a  stranger  can  have  abroad.  The  spirit 
that  has  been  so  much  with  him,  has  taken  flesh  and  voice.  He 
grasps  for  the  first  time  the  hand  of  an  old  friend.  When  in 

*  Laws  and  rights  are  inherited  like  an  everlasting  disease  ;  they  drag 
"hemselves  along  from  generation  to  generation,  and  quietly  move  from 
place  to  place.  Reason  becomes  nonsense,  blessings  become  curses  ;  woe  to 
thee  that  thou  art  a  grandchild  !  Of  the  right  that  is  born  with  us,  of  this, 
alas  !  there  is  no  thought 


36  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

London  before,  I  had  a  good  view  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  as 
he  rode  up  to  his  house,  at  the  corner  of  Hyde  Park,  and  dis- 
mounted ;  so  that  I  have  seen  England's  three  foremost  living 
men,  Wordsworth,  Wellington,  Carlyle. 

On  Friday  afternoon  September  llth,  at  three  o'clock,  we  left 
London  by  railroad  for  Southampton,  which  we  reached  at  six, 
and  crossing  the  channel  by  steamboat  in  the  night,  entered  *he 
port  of  Havre  at  ten  the  next  morning.  The  town  looked  dirty 
at  a  distance,  and  is  dirtier  than  it  looked.  The  small  craft  we 
passed  in  the  harbor  were  unclean  and  unwieldy.  The  streets 
ran  filth  to  a  degree  that  offended  both  eyes  and  nose.  Knots  of 
idle  shabby  men  were  standing  at  corners,  gossipping,  and  look- 
ing at  parrots  and  monkeys  exposed  for  sale.  The  inn  we  got 
into,  commended  as  one  of  the  best,  was  so  dirty,  that  we  could 
not  bear  to  face  the  prospect  of  a  night  in  it.  We  hired  a 
carriage  and  started  at  four  with  post-horses  for  Rouen,  which 
we  reached  at  midnight.  Here  we  spent  Sunday.  Rouen  is 
finely  placed,  on  the  Seine,  with  lofty  hills  about  it.  In  the 
Diligence,  in  which  we  started  early  on  Monday,  to  overtake 
fifteen  miles  up  the  river,  the  steamboat  to  St.  Germain,  I  heard 
a  Frenchman  say  to  a  Frenchwoman,  "  Rouen  est  le  pot-de-cham- 
bre  de  la  Normandie."  You  know  of  the  Cathedral  at  Rouen 
and  of  the  Maid  of  Orleans'  execution,  but  this  is  probably  in  all 
respects  new  to  you.  To  me  it  was  also  new  and  satisfactory, 
being  an  indication  that  some  of  the  dwellers  in  this  region  have 
a  consciousness  of  the  presence  of  stenches.  We  entered  Paris 
in  a  hard  rain  at  ten  o'clock  on  Monday  night. 

The  French  claim  for  Paris  that  it  is  the  most  beautiful  city  in 
the  world.  From  a  point  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Seine,  near  the 
bridge  leading  from  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  is  the  finest,  and  truly 
a  noble  panoramic  view.  Standing  with  your  back  to  the  river, 
right,  before  you  is  the  Place  itself,  with  its  glittering  fountains 
and  Egyptian  Obelisk.  Directly  across  it,  the  eye  rests  on  two 


PARIS.  17 


imposing  fapades,  which  form  a  grand  portal  to  the  Rue  Royale, 
at  the  end  whereof,  less  than  half  a  mile  distant,  the  Church  of  the 
Madeleine  presents  its  majestic  front  of  Corinthian  columns.  On 
the  right  the  eye  runs  down  the  long  facade  of  the  Rue  Rivoli, 
cut  at  right  angles  by  the  Palace  of  the  Tuileries,  peering  above 
the  trees  of  the  Tuileries  garden  which,  with  its  deep  shade  and 
wide  walks,  lies  between  you  and  the  Palace.  To  the  right  now  of 
the  garden  the  view  sweeps  up  the  river,  with  its  bridges  and  miles 
of  broad  quais,  and  ends  in  a  distant  labyrinth  of  building,  out 
of  which  rises  the  dark  head  of  Notre  Dame  de  Paris.  Near 
you  on  the  opposite,  that  is,  the  left  bank  of  the  Seine,  and  face  to 
face  to  the  Madeleine,  is  the  imposing  Palais  des  Elisees  Bourbons, 
now  the  Hall  of  the  Deputies.  To  the  right  the  gardens  attached 
to  the  Elisees  Bourbons  and  the  grounds  of  the  Hotel  des  Invalides 
fill  the  space  near  the  river  on  the  left  bank,  and  the  Champs 
Elisees,  at  one  corner  of  which  you  stand,  press  upon  its  shore 
on  this  side,  while  the  view  directly  down  the  stream  stretches 
into  the  country.  Back  now  through  a  full  circle  to  your  first 
position,  and  with  the  Madeleine  again  in  front,  on  your  left  are 
the  Champs  Elisees,  at  the  other  extremity  of  which,  more  than  a 
mile  off,  just  out  of  the  Neuilly  Gate,  towers  the  gigantic  Imperial 
Arch  of  Triumph  built  by  Napoleon.  But  to  get  the  best  view  of 
this  magnificent  Colossus,  you  must  advance  to  the  centre  of  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde,  where,  from  the  foot  of  the  Obelisk,  with 
your  back  to  the  Tuileries,  you  behold  it  closing  the  chief 
Avenue  of  the  Champs  Elisees,  and,  by  the  elevation  of  the 
ground  and  its  own  loftiness,  standing  alone,  the  grandest  monu- 
ment of  the  French  Capital. 

A  rare  and  most  effective  combination  this,  of  objects  and 
aspects.  From  no  other  city  can  there  be  embraced  from  a  sin- 
gle  point  an  equal  extent,  variety  and  grandeur.  There  are 
similar  but  less  striking  views  from  several  other  open  spots. 

From  the  general  deficiency  of  good  architecture,  large  cities 


18  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

show  best  when,  from  the  banks  of  a  river  or  broad  open  squares, 
they  can  be  beheld  in  long  distant  masses.  Paris  gains  hereby 
especially,  as,  from  the  habits  of  the  people,  not  only  are  the 
streets  dirtier  than  need  be,  but  the  basements  are  mostly  un- 
sightly and  often  disgusting ;  and  the  faces  generally,  even  of 
massive  buildings,  with  architectural  pretensions,  have  an  un- 
washed and  ragged  look. 

PARIS,  March,  1841. 

A  Frenchman,  more  than  other  men,  is  dependent  upon  things 
without  himself.  Nature  and  his  own  mind,  with  domestic  inte- 
rests and  recreations,  are  not  enough  to  complete  his  daily  circle. 
For  his  best  enjoyment  he  must  have  a  succession  of  factitious 
excitements.  Out  of  this  want  Paris  has  grown  to  be  the  capital 
of  the  world  for  superficial  amusements.  Here  are  the  appli- 
ances,— multiplied  and  diversified  with  the  keenest  refinement  of 
sensual  ingenuity, — for  keeping  the  mind  busy  without  labor  and 
fascinated  without  sensibility.  The  senses  are  beset  with  piquant 
baits.  Whoever  has  money  in  his  purse,  and  can  satisfy  through 
gold  his  chief  wants,  need  have  little  thought  of  the  day  or  the 
year.  He  finds  a  life  all  prepared  for  him,  and  selects  it,  as  he 
does  his  dinner  from  the  voluminous  carte  of  the  Restaurant. 
To  live,  is  for  him  as  easy  as  to  make  music  on  a  hand-organ  : 
with  but  slight  physical  effort  from  himself,  he  is  borne  along  from 
week  to  week  and  from  season  to  season  on  an  unresting  current 
of  diversions.  Here  the  sensual  can  pass  years  without  satiety, 
and  the  slothful  without  ennui.  Paris  is  the  Elysium  of  the  idler, 
and  for  barren  minds  a  Paradise. 

When  I  first  arrived,  I  went  almost  nightly  to  some  one  of  the 
many  theatres.  I  soon  tired  of  the  smaller  where,  mostly,  licen- 
tious intrigue  and  fabulous  liberality  alternate  with  farce  to  keep 
the  attention  awake  through  two  or  three  acts  of  commonplace. 
At  the  Theatre  Franpais,  I  saw  Moli^re  and  Rachel.  It  is  no 


RACHEL.  19 


disparagement  of  Moliere  to  call  him  a  truncated  Shakspeare. 
The  naturalness,  vigor,  comic  sense,  practical  insight  and  scenic 
life  of  Shakspeare  he  has  ;  without  Shakspeare's  purple  glow, 
his  reach  of  imagination  and  ample  intellectual  grasp,  which 
latter  supreme  qualities  shoot  light  down  into  the  former  subordi- 
nate ones,  and  thus  impart  to  Shakspeare's  comic  and  lowest  per- 
sonages a  poetic  soul,  which  raises  and  refines  them,  the  want 
whereof  in  Moliere  makes  his  low  characters  border  on  faice 
and  his  highest  prosaic. 

Rachel  is  wonderful.  She  is  on  the  stage  an  embodied  radi- 
ance. Her  body  seems  inwardly  illuminated.  Conceive  a  Greek 
statue  endued  with  speech  and  mobility,  for  the  purpose  of  giving 
utterance  to  a  profound  soul  stirred  to  its  depths,  and  you  have  an 
image  of  the  magic  union  in  her  personations  of  fervor  and  grace. 
Till  I  heard  her,  I  never  fully  valued  the  might  of  elocution.  She 
goes  right  to  the  heart  by  dint  of  intonation ;  just  as,  with  his  arm 
ever  steady,  the  fencer  deals  or  parries  death  by  the  mere  motion 
of  his  wrist.  Phrases,  words,  syllables,  grow  plastic,  swell  or 
contract,  come  pulsing  with  life,  as  they  issue  from  her  lips.  Her 
head  is  superb  ;  oval,  full,  large,  compact,  powerful.  She  cannot 
be  said  to  have  beauty  of  face  or  figure ;  yet  the  most  beautiful 
woman  were  powerless  to  divert  from  her  the  eyes  of  the  specta- 
tor. Her  spiritual  beauty  is  there  more  bewitching  than  can  be 
the  corporeal.  When  in  the  Horaces  she  utters  the  curse,  it  is  as 
though  the  whole  electricity  of  a  tempest  played  through  her 
arteries.  It  is  not  Corneille's  Camille,  or  Racine's  Hermione, 
solely  that  you  behold,  it  is  a  dazzling  incarnation  of  a  human 
soul. 

Through  Rachel  I  have  seen  the  chefs-d'osuvre  of  Corneille 
and  Racine,  reproduced  by  her  on  the  French  stage,  whence,  since 
the  death  of  Talma,  they  had  been  banished. 

Without  creation  of  character,  there  is  no  genuine  drama.  So 
vivid  and  individual  should  be  the  personages,  that  out  of  their 


20  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

feelings  and  acts  the  drama  evolves  itself,  under  the  guidance  of 
judgment  and  the  purification  of  poetry.  Without  such  individu- 
ality and  productive  vitality  in  the  characters,  poetry,  sentiment, 
action,  fail  of  their  effect  in  the  dramatic  form.  The  personages 
of  the  French  Theatre  are  not  creations,  they  are  transplantations. 
Corneille  and  Racine  took  in  hand  the  tragic  subjects  of  antiquity 
but  they  did  not  re-animate  them.  Agamemnon  and  Augustu; 
owe  nothing  to  their  Gallic  parents :  their  souls  are  rjot  swelled 
with  thoughts  beyond  a  Greek  or  Roman  age.  Measure  them 
with  Shakspeare's  Coriolanus,  or  Anthony,  or  Brutus,  and  they 
are  marrowless.  Shakspeare  has  so  vivified  his  Romans,  that  the 
pages  of  history,  whence  they  are  taken,  pale  by  the  side  of  them. 
The  French  appear  not  to  have  had  depth  enough  to  produce 
an  original  tragic  Drama.  The  tragic  material, — whereof  senti- 
ment is  as  essential  an  element  as  passion, — is  meagre  in  them, 
compared  with  the  Germans  or  English  ;  hence  the  possibility 
and  even  necessity  of  a  simpler  plot  and  a  measured  regularity. 
Corneille  or  Racine  could  not  have  wrought  a  tragedy  out  of  a 
tradition  or  a  modern  fable  :  they  require  a  familiarized  historical 
subject.  The  nature  of  French  Tragedy,  compared  with  Eng- 
lish, is  happily  illustrated  by  the  Hamlet  of  Ducis,  which  I 
have  seen  played  at  the  Theatre  FranQais.  The  title  of  the  piece 
is,  "  Hamlet,  Tragedie  en  5  acts,  imitee  de  1'Anglais  par  Ducis." 
A  fitter  title  were,  "  Hamlet,  with  the  part  of  Hamlet  left  out,  by 
particular  desire  of  French  taste."  It  is  as  much  an  imitation 
of  Shakspeare,  as  straight  walks  and  parallel  lines  of  trees  are  an 
imitation  of  Nature.  Hamlet  is  resolved  into  a  tender-hearted 
affectionate  son.  He  has  not  been  put  aside,  but  is  king.  Ophe- 
lia does  anything  but  go  mad.  The  mother  is  overwhelmed  with 
remorse  for  the  murder,  which  she  confesses  to  a  confidant.  The 
heart  of  Hamlet's  mystery  is  plucked  out.  The  poetry  is  flat- 
tened into  phrases.  The  billowy  sea  of  Shakspeare  is  belittled  to 


FRENCH  TRAGEDY.  21 


a  smooth  pond,  in  every  part  whereof  you  can  touch  bottom.  It 
is  not  deep  enough  to  dive  in. 

It  is  the  nature  of  high  poetry  to  bind  the  individual  to 
the  universal.  Corneille  and  Racine  live  in  a  middle  atmo- 
sphere between  the  two.  They  have  not  the  rich  sensibility, 
which,  united  on  the  one  hand  to  high  reason,  reveals  to  the  poet 
the  primal  laws  of  being,  and  on  the  other  with  powers  of  minute 
observation,  imparts  liveliness  to  his  embodiments.  They  are 
neither  minute  nor  comprehensive ;  hence  their  personages  are 
vague  and  prosaic.  The  highest  quality  of  their  tragedies  is  a 
refined  and  skilful  rhetoric.  Their  verse  is  like  bas-relief;  the 
parts  follow  one  another  in  a  graceful  well-joined  sequence  ;  but 
there  is  no  perspective,  no  deep  vistas,  breeding  as  you  pass  them 
suggestions  and  subtle  sensations.  Their  personages  leave  nothing 
to  your  imagination  ;  they  are  terrible  egotists ;  they  do  most 
thoroughly  "unpack  their  souls  with  words;"  they  give  measured 
speech  to  feelings  which  at  most  should  find  but  broken  utter- 
ance. 

French  Tragedy  is  not  primitive.  With  laborious  skill  their 
tragic  writers  re-cast  old  materials.  In  Polyeucte  Corneille  throws 
a  deeper  line,  but  attains  to  no  greater  individuality  of  charac- 
terization, nor  is  he  less  declamatory  than  in  his  Roman  pieces. 
Both  he  and  Racine  are  more  epic  than  dramatic.  The  French 
language,  moulded  by  the  mental  character  of  a  nation  wanting 
in  depth  of  sensibility,  is  not  a  medium  for  the  highest  species  of 
poetry,  and  had  Corneille  and  Racine  been  poets  of  the  first  order, 
they  would  either  have  re-fused  the  language,  so  that  it  would  have 
flowed  readily  into  all  the  forms  forged  by  the  concurrent  action 
of  sensibility  and  thought,  or,  failing  in  that,  they  would,  like 
Rabelais,  have  betaken  themselves  to  more  obedient  prose.  Mo- 
liere  had  not  a  highly  poetic  mind,  and  he  wrote  verse  evidently 
with  uncommon  ease ;  and,  nevertheless,  1  doubt  not  that  even  to 
him  the  Alexandrine  was  a  shackle ;  and  although  Corneille  and 


22  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

Racine  cannot  be  rated  among  the  first  class  of  poets,  I  think  too 
well  of  them  not  to  believe,  that  by  it  their  flight  was  greatly 
circumscribed.  French  verse,  which  requires  a  delicate  attention 
to  metre  or  the  mechanical  constituent,  affords  little  scope  for 
rhythm,  and  is  therefore  a  hindrance  rather  than  a  furtherance 
to  the  true  poet.  In  other  cultivated  languages  the  form  meets 
the  substance  half-way — is,  as  it  were,  on  the  \v<xtch  for  it ;  so 
that  the  English,  or  Italian,  or  German  poet,  far  from  being  im- 
peded by  the  versification  of  his  thoughts  as  they  rise,  finds  him- 
self thereby  facilitated,  the  metre  embracing  the  poetic  matter 
with  such  closeness  and  alacrity  as  to  encourage  and  accelerate 
its  production  and  utterance.  Hence  in  French  literature  the 
poets  are  not  the  highest  names.  Homer,  Dante,  Shakspeare, 
Goethe,  are  supreme  in  their  respective  lands ;  not  so  Corneille 
or  Racine. 

The  Frenchman  who,  as  thinker  and  creator,  may  best  claim 
to  rank  with  the  poet-thinkers  of  other  nations,  did  not  write  in 
verse.  Rabelais  was  a  master-mind.  His  buffoonery  and  smut 
are  justified  by  Coleridge,  as  being  a  necessary  vehicle  in  his  age 
for  the  conveyance  of  truth.  As  it  was,  he  is  said  to  have  owed 
his  liberty  and  even  life  to  the  favor  of  Francis  I.  I  suspect  thai 
he  was  naturally  so  constructed  as  to  wear  willingly  such  a  mask. 
His  great  work  presents  a  whole  of  the  most  grotesque  humor, 
which  may  be  defined,  the  shadow  caused  by  the  light  of  the  spiritual 
falling  on  the  animal  through  the  medium  of  the  comic.  Rabelais's 
full  animal  nature  and  broad  understanding  presented  a  solid  and 
variegated  mass  of  the  low  and  corporeal  for  the  sun  of  his 
searching  reason  and  high  spirituality  to  shine  upon,  and  the 
shadows  resulting  are  broad  and  deep.  The  two  natures  of  beast 
and  man  seem  in  him  to  measure  their  strength,  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  Comic,  which  stands  by  and  sets  them  on. 

Pascal  is  the  only  French  writer  I  know  in  whom  there  is  the 
greatness  that  results  from  purity  and  depth,  the  contact  where- 


VOLTAIRE.  23 


with  lifts  one  up  and  kindles  emotions  which  possess  the  soul  like 
a  heavenly  visitation,  banishing  for  a  time  whatever  there  is  in  one 
of  little  or  unworthy. 

Carlyle  calls  Voltaire  the  most  French  of  Frenchmen.  I  will 
not  do  the  French  the  injustice  to  call  him  the  greatest,  though 
doubtless  most  of  his  contemporaries  so  esteemed  him.  He  was 
the  leader  of  a  generation  whose  necessary  calling  was  to  deny 
and  destroy.  His  country  panted  under  a  monstrous  accumulation 
of  spiritual  and  civil  usurpations :  he  wielded  the  sharpest  axe  in 
the  humane  work  of  demolition.  His  powers  were  great  and  his 
labors  immense ;  and  yet  there  were  in  him  such  deficiencies,  as 
to  defeat  the  attainment  of  completeness  in  any  one  of  his  various 
literary  undertakings.  Voltaire  had  not  soul  enough  to  put  him 
in  direct  communication  with  the  heart  of  the  Universe.  What- 
ever implied  emotion,  came  to  him  at  second-hand,  through  his 
intellect.  He  was  not  a  great  poet,  a  creator ;  he  was  a  great 
demolishes  Let  him  have  thanks  for  much  that  he  did  in  that 
capacity. 

I  record  with  diffidence  these  brief  judgments,  for  I  have  made 
no  wide -and  thorough  study  of  French  Literature.  It  does  not 
take  hold  of  me :  it  lacks  soul.  Of  the  present  generation  of 
writers  I  am  still  less  qualified  to  speak,  having  read  but  par- 
tially  of  any  one  of  them.  They  don't  draw  me  into  intimacy. 
It  is  a  peculiarly  grateful  state  of  mind  when,  on  laying  down  a 
fresh  volume,  you  resolve  to  possess  yourself  of  all  that  its  author 
has  written.  You  feel  like  one  who  has  found  a  new  friend.  I 
have  not  yet  met  with  the  French  writer  who  gives  me  assurance 
of  this  permanent  enjoyment.  I  refer  more  particularly  to  works 
belonging  to  the  provinces  of  creation  and  criticism,  else  I  should 
mention  Thierry,  whose  volume  entitled  Lettres  sur  I'Histoire  de  la 
France  seems  .to  me  a  masterpiece  of  historical  research  and 
political  acuteness.  The  authors  whose  names  have  lately  most 
sounded  abroad,  Guizot,  Cousin,  Villemain,  want  vitality.  Their 


24  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

writings,  to  use  a  phrase  of  Dr.  Johnson,  come  from  reservoirs, 
not  springs.  Thierry  is  of  a  higher  order.  In  La  Mennais  is  the 
will  and  noble  aim,  without  the  power  and  accomplishment.  The 
romantic  dramas  of  Hugo  and  others,  simmering  with  black  law- 
less passion,  are  opaque  as  well  as  shallow,  and  empty  of  poetry. 
They  have  much  more  sound  than  substance,  more  fury  than 
force.  The  new  French  Literature  is  yet  to  come  into  being. 

The  French  beat  the  world  in  milliners,  in  tailors,  in  porcelain, 
in  upholstery,  in  furniture ;  their  or  molu  is  unrivalled,  so  are 
their  mousselines  and  silks  ;  but  not  so  is  their  painting,  or  their 
sculpture,  or  their  music,  or  their  poetry.  In  the  ornamental 
they  are  unequalled,  but  not  in  the  creative.  Their  sphere  is  the 
artificial  and  conventional  :  their  sympathy  with  nature  is  not 
direct  and  intense.  Their  Ideal  in  Art  is  not  the  result  of  a  warm 
embrace  with  nature,  but  of  a  methodical  study  of  established 
masters.  With  their  poets  and  artists  the  aim  and  motive  in 
labor  is  too  much  the  approval  of  Paris,  where  humanity  is  so 
bedizened  by  artifice,  that  the  smile  and  melody  of  nature  are 
scarce  discernible. 

I  saw  Napoleon's  funeral,  a  showy  martial  pageant,  befitting 
the  Imperial  soldier.  The  escort  was  a  hundred  thousand  armed 
men ;  the  followers,  half  a  million  of  both  sexes.  For  hours, 
the  broad  long  avenue  of  the  Champs  Elisees  was  choked  with 
the  moving  throng.  It  was  a  solemn  moment  when  the  funeral 
car  came  slowly  by.  There,  within  a  few  feet,  lay  the  body  of 
the  man,  the  tramp  of  whose  legions  had  been  mournfully  heard 
in  every  great  capital  of  the  continent ;  whose  words  had  been 
more  than  the  breath  of  a  dozen  kings.  His  shrivelled  dust  passed 
through  triumphal  arches  and  columns,  emblazoned  with  the  re- 
cord of  his  hundred  conquests.  Of  them,  there  was  nothing  left 
to  France  but  the  name, — of  him,  nothing  but  those  cold  remains. 
Not  even  a  living  member  of  his  line  was  present,  sadly  to  share 
in  this  tardy  show  of  honor.  The  day  was  cold  and  so  were  the 


NAPOLEON.  25 


hearts  of  the  multitude.  Those  bones,  let  out  of  their  ocean 
prison,  brought  with  them  no  hope  for  the  nation.  When  they 
are  buried,  there  will  be  an  end  of  Napoleon.  His  name  will 
hereafter  be  but  a  gorgeous  emptiness :  his  memory  is  not  vitalized 
oy  a  principle.  In  his  aims  there  lay  no  deep  hope,  whence  his 
fellow  men,  battling  for  rights,  might  for  ever  draw  courage  and 
strength.  While  he  still  lived,  his  schemes  were  baffled,  and 
what  he  founded  had  already  passed  away.  His  plans  were  all 
for  himself,  and  hence  with  himself  they  fell,  and  left  scarce  a 
trace  behind.  He  gave  birth  to  no  great  Ideas,  that,  fructifying 
among  men,  would  have  built  for  him  in  their  souls  an  everlasting 
home.  He  saw  not  into  the  depths  of  truth,  and  he  knew  not  its 
unequalled  might.  Therefore,  with  all  his  power  he  was  weak  : 
naught  of  what  he  wished  came  to  pass,  and  what  he  did  with 
such  fiery  vehemence,  with  still  more  startling  swiftness  was 
undone.  His  thoughts  were  not  in  harmony  with  the  counsels 
of  God,  and  so  they  perished  with  himself.  The  Emperor  will 
have  his  conspicuous  place  in  History,  but  the  man  will  not  live 
in  the  minds  of  men.  For  the  most  potent  king  of  the  Earth, 
what  is  he,  if  he  be  a  false  man  ?  That  one  so  false  could  so  rule, 
is  a  token  of  the  confusion  of  the  times. 

One  looks  almost  in  vain  for  the  spots  that  were  the  centres  of 
the  terrific  doings  of  the  Revolution.  They  are  mostly  so  trans- 
formed as  to  have  lost  their  identity.  Time  has  been  quick  in 
wiping  out  the  bloody  stains.  Whoever  wishes  to  bring  before 
his  mind,  on  the  ground  itself,  the  place  of  execution,  will  need 
an  imagination  intense  enough  to  close  the  avenues  of  his  senses 
against  the  garish  sights  and  sounds  of  the  most  brilliant  public 
square  of  this  gayest  of  capitals ;  for  what  is  now  the  Place  de 
la  Concorde,  with  its  lively  gilt  fountains  and  rattling  equipages, 
was  once  the  Place  de  la  Revolution,  where  blood  streamed  daily 
under  the  axe  of  the  headsman.  If,  then,  he  can  succeed  in  call- 
ing up  the  Guillotine,  with  its  pale  victims  and  exulting  throng 
3 


26  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

of  savage  spectators,  it  will  be  easier  for  the  timid  to  shudder  at 
its  butcheries,  than  for  the  thinker  to  solve  the  problem  of  their 
permission.  Through  the  tears  and  woes  of  man,  the  deep  laws 
of  Providence  march  on  to  their  mysterious  fulfilment.  One  may 
believe,  that  to  a  people  so  brutified  by  tyranny,  so  despoiled  of 
natural  rights,  was  needed  the  swiftest  sweep  of  authority,  the 
broadest  exhibition  of  power,  the  grossest  verification  of  escape 
from  bondage,  in  order  to  vindicate  at  last  and  for  ever  their  hu- 
man claim  to  a  will. 

The  French  people,  according  to  report  of  those  who  have 
known  them  in  both  periods,  are  more  earnest  and  substantial 
than  they  were  two  generations  back.  They  think  and  feel  more, 
and  talk  less.  There  must  be  hope  for  a  nation  that  could  erect 
itself  as  this  did,  scatter  with  a  tempest  the  rooted  rubbish  of 
ages,  overturn  half  the  thrones  of  Europe,  and  though  re-con- 
quered through  the  very  spirit  of  freedom  that  at  first  had  made 
itself  invincible,  once  more  at  the  end  of  a  half  century,  rend 
the  old  re-imposed  fetters  and  stand  firmly  on  a  blood-purchased 
ground  of  liberty, — liberty,  in  comparison  with  its  civil  and  so- 
cial condition  sixty  years  ago.  For  neither  was  the  second  Revo- 
lution any  more  than  the  first  the  beginning  of  popular  rule :  it 
was  the  end  of  unpopular  misrule.  The  mass  of  the  French 
people  have  still  no  direct  agency  in  the  government.  One  of 
the  two  legislative  bodies,  as  you  are  aware,  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  is  chosen  by  about  two  hundred  thousand  electors  out 
of  a  population  that  numbers  five  millions  of  male  adults ;  the 
other,  the  Chamber  of  Peers,  is  created  by  the  king, — a  monstrous 
anomaly,  and  an  insulting  mockery.  If  the  revolution  of  the 
three  days  was  a  protest  against  monarchical  predominance  and 
military  coercion,  Louis  Philippe  misrepresents  it  most  flagrantly. 
By  the  army  is  he  upheld,  not  by  the  nation.  I  have  seen  him, 
going  to  open  the  session  of  the  legislature,  closely  guarded  by 
twenty  thousand  bayonets.  What  the  purpose  is  of  the  fortifica- 


PRESENT  GOVERNMENT.  27 

tion  of  Paris,  will  become  palpable  in  some  future  revolution. 
If  the  tens  of  millions  buried  under  this  vast  cincture,  destined  to 
be  levelled  by  popular  wrath,  had  been  expended  upon  railroads 
radiating  from  the  capital  (not  to  mention  higher  national  wants), 
Paris  would  have  been  rendered  impregnable,  and  France  greatly 
forwarded  in  wealth  and  civilisation.  The  "  throne  surrounded 
by  republican  institutions,"  promised  by  Lafayette  when  he  made 
Louis  Philippo  king,  was  the  groundless  hope  of  a  veteran  pa- 
triot, too  single-minded  to  have  forgotten  the  dream  of  his  youth, 
and  too  short-sighted  to  discern  how  far  it  was  then  from  realiza- 
tion. The  fulfilment  of  the  promise  he  confided  to  one,  whose 
mental  construction  was  the  very  opposite  of  his  own,  as  well  in- 
tellectually as  morally. 

The  present  is  a  government  of  bayonets  tempered  by  the 
Press.  The  Press,  though  not  quite  free,  is  an  immense  power, 
and  its  growth  is  a  measure  of  French  progress  in  sixty  years. 
The  people,  though  far  yet  from  that  maturity  which  self-govern- 
ment implies,  do  not  require  the  semi-military  rule  of  the  Orleans 
Dynasty.  Yet  are  their  bonds  not  so  heavy  and  tight  but  that 
they  have  in  some  directions  quite  a  wide  range  of  movement. 
And  they  have  a  healthful  abiding  consciousness  of  their  power 
to  pull  down  the  state,  if  ever  again  it  should  become  grossly 
oppressive.  It  is  utterly  incalculable,  what,  by  two  such  tri- 
umphant efforts  as  their  two  revolutions,  a  people  gains  in  self- 
respect,  and  self-reliance,  and  hopeful  self-trust,  the  basis  of  all 
moral  superstructure,  and  therefore  of  all  permanent  self-govern- 
ment, 

ANTWERF,  .Tine,  1841. 

In  France  there  is  little  rural  beauty.  The  country  looks 
bald  and  meagre  and  lifeless.  No  clumps  of  trees,  nor  rose- 
sweetened  cottages,  nor  shady  hamlets,  betokening  snug  fire- 
sides and  a  quiet  sympathy  with  nature,  'Twas  cheering  to  get 


28  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

into  Belgium.  Here  were  the  marks  of  a  deeper  order  and  more 
intelligent  labor.  On  all  sides  cleanliness  and  thrift.  The 
sightly,  compact  towns  looked  full  of  well-husbanded  resources. 
From  Courtrai,  near  the  borders  of  France,  to  Antwerp,  we 
passed,  by  railroad,  for  sixty  miles  through  what  seemed  a  fair 
rich  garden,  so  smooth  and  minute  is  the  tillage.  The  soil  looked 
grateful  to  its  working. 

It  would  almost  appear  that  there  had  been  a  defeat  of  Nature's 
intent  in  this  quarter  of  Europe;  a  territory  has  been  split, 
which  was  so  naturally  adapted  for  unity.  One  cannot  help 
thinking  it  a  pity  the  Burgundian  sovereignty  had  not  lasted. 
Where  there  are  now  discordant  French,  Belgians,  and  Dutch, 
there  might  have  been  one  homogeneous  people  of  eight  or  ten 
millions,  with  breadth  of  territory,  and  strength  and  variety  of 
resources,  sufficient  for  an  ample  national  development.  Just  at 
the  period,  towards  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  when  a  nation 
was  forming  and  about  to  be  knit  together  by  Literature  and  the 
Arts, — for  which  it  exhibited  such  aptitude, — the  whole  country, 
by  the  marriage  of  the  heiress  of  the  last  of  the  Burgundians, 
passed  into  the  hands  of  Austria,  and  thence  by  Charles  V.  was 
left  to  his  son,  Philip  II.  of  Spain.  The  high  spirit  of  the  people 
would  not  brook  the  cruelties  of  this  tyrant  and  his  creature 
Alba,  who  wished  to  establish  among  them  the  Inquisition,  that 
masterpiece  of  Satan's  most  inventive  mood.  In  the  famous 
revolt,  only  the  northern  provinces  were  successful.  Belgium 
remained  under  the  dominion  of  Spain  a  century  longer,  when  it 
was  re-transferred  to  Austria,  from  which  it  was  finally  wrested 
in  the  French  Revolution,  to  be  first  incorporated  into  France,  and 
then  by  the  Congress  of  Vienna  reunited,  after  a  divorce  of  more 
than  two  centuries,  to  Holland.  But  during  that  long  separation, 
the  two,  living  under  totally  different  influences,  had  naturally 
contracted  habits  that  were  reciprocally  hostile.  Holland  was 
Protestant,  Belgium,  Catholic;  and  the  language,  which,  under  a 


ANTWERP.  29 


permanent  union,  might  have  been  unfolded  by  the  wants  of  a 
vigorous  nation  to  take  rank  by  the  side  of  the  cognate  German, 
was  broken  into  dialects,  that  of  Holland  becoming  cultivated 
enough  to  be  the  medium  of  some  literature,  that  of  Belgium 
remaining  the  half-grown  speech  of  the  peasants  and  Bourgeois, 
and  giving  place  in  salons  and  palaces  to  the  more  refined  tongue 
of  its  overshadowing  Southern  neighbor.  It  was  now  too  late  to 
make  one  nation  of  the  Netherlands,  and  so,  the  marriage, 
brought  about  by  neighbors  through  persuasions  too  well  backed 
by  power  to  be  withstood,  was  soon  dissolved,  and  Belgium  was 
erected  into  an  independent  monarchy,  under  a  new  king,  by  the 
side  of  Holland,  or,  I  should  say,  a  separate  monarchy;  for  when 
united,  they  had  not  the  strength  for  independence,  and  now  of 
course  will  even  the  more  readily  fall  victims  of  greedy  neigh- 
bors, whenever  the  beam  of  that  very  unsteady  fixture  called  the 
balance  of  power  shall  be  kicked. 

Antwerp  has  still  much  of  the  wealth  and  beauty  it  inherited 
from  the  olden  time,  when,  with  its  two  hundred  thousand  inha- 
bitants, it  was,  in  commerce  and  opulence,  the  first  among  the 
cities  of  Europe  ;  and  its  merchant  princes  built  up  cathedrals 
and  squares  and  palaces,  for  Rubens  and  Vandyke  to  people  out 
of  their  procreative  brains.  The  population  is  reduced  now  to 
seventy  or  eighty  thousand,  the  port  is  content  with  a  hundred 
vessels  at  a  time  instead  of  two  thousand ;  but  the  broad  clean 
streets  bordered  with  stately  mansions  are  still  here,  and  the 
cathedral,  whose  spire  alone  is  a  dower  for  a  province;  and  the 
inhabitants,  yet  rich  in  fat  lands  and  well-filled  coffers,  are  still 
richer  in  the  possession  of  some  of  the  fairest  offspring  of  their 
great  fellow-townsman's  genius.  The  potency  of  genius  and  art 
is  here  most  forcibly  exemplified.  Take  away  Rubens  and  the 
Cathedral,  and  Antwerp  would  not  be  Antwerp.  This  tower, 
steadfast,  light,  fretted  with  delicate  tracery,  springing  nearly  four 
hundred  feet  from  the  ground,  which  it  seems  to  touch  no  mcr3 


30  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

heavily  than  a  swan  about  to  take  flight,  is  an  unfading  beauty 
shining  daily  on  the  hearts  of  the  people,  while  the  memory  of 
Rubens  and  his  presence  in  his  gigantic  handiwork  are  a  perpe- 
tual image  of  greatness.  To  the  passing  stranger  they  are  an 
adornment  to  the  land,  but  to  the  natives  a  stay  and  brace  to  the 
very  mind  itself,  keeping  ever  before  them  the  reality  of  beauty 
and  power,  and  fortifying  them  with  the  consciousness  of  kindred 
with  genius  and  greatness. 

Antwerp  has  at  this  time  high  artists,  Jacobs,  Keyser,  Waep- 
pers,  who  sit  under  the  transparent  shadow  of  this  marvellous 
tower,  and  whose  art  attains  a  more  juicy  maturity  in  the  sun  of 
Rubens's  genius.  Their  works  sell  at  high  prices  as  fast  as  they 
produce  them.  Love  of  art,  blended  in  the  hearts  of  the  people 
with  religion,  is  an  element  of  their  nature.  The  creations  of 
their  great  painters  illuminate  the  churches,  and  through  the 
incense  that  ascends  from  the  altar,  beam  upon  the  upturned 
countenance  of  the  worshipper.  In  the  public  Museum  are  pre- 
served some  of  the  best  works  of  Rubens  and  Vandyke  ;  and  in 
private  dwellings  are  seen  family  portraits  from  their  hands,  fresh 
from  the  embalming  touch  of  genius,  twice-prized, — by  personal 
and  by  national  pride. 

In  a  rich  private  collection  of  old  books  and  pictures,  I  have 
seen  a  set  of  engravings,  bound  up  into  several  huge  tomes  of  the 
greater  part  of  Rubens's  works.  To  behold  thus  at  a  single 
view,  the  collected  product  of  such  a  spirit's  life,  is  to  have  in 
one's  hand  a  key  to  much  of  the  mystery  of  the  painter's  art. 
This  man's  mind  was  an  ever-teeming  womb  of  light-dyed  forms. 
These  were  the  spontaneous  absorbing  growth  of  his  brain.  With 
him,  existence  could  only  be  enjoyed,  fulfilled,  by  delivering  him- 
self  of  this  urgent  brood  of  brain-engendered  pictures.  What  a 
wealth  of  invention  and  inexhaustible  vigor  !  What  fertility,  and 
boldness,  and  breadth  and  fire  !  What  opulence  and  grandeur  of 
imagination  !  What  skill  in  the  marshalling  of  his  legions ! 


CONTRASTS.  31 


What  life  in  each  head,  in  each  figure,  in  each  group !  And 
what  a  flood  of  beauty  in  his  coloring  !  'Tis  as  if,  for  his  great 
pictures,  he  had  gathered  into  his  brain  the  hues  of  a  gorgeous 
sunset,  and  poured  them  upon  the  canvas. 

Among  the  features  wherein  old  Europe  differs  from  young 
America,  none  is  more  prominent  than  the  large  number  of  idlers 
in  Europe.  Capital  being  wanting  in  the  United  States,  almost 
the  universal  energy  is  busied  in  supplying  it ;  in  Europe  it  is 
abundant  and  many  live  in  industrial  unproductiveness  upon  its 
moderate  dividends.  With  us,  it  is  hardly  respectable  to  be  idle  ; 
here,  only  they  who  are  so,  enjoy  the  highest  consideration. 
With  us,  gentility  is  confined  to  those  who  addict  themselves  to 
certain  kinds  of  labor  ;  in  Europe  it  excludes  all  who  labor  at  all, 
except  in  the  highest  offices  of  the  State.  In  "  good  society" 
here,  you  meet  with  neither  lawyer,  nor  merchant,  nor  physician, 
not  even  with  the  clergy,  for  in  Belgium,  priests  are  drawn  from 
the  peasant  and  bourgeois  classes,  and  their  consecration  is  not 
believed  to  confer  upon  them  nobility.  Birth  has  hitherto  been 
an  almost  indispensable  passport  into  the  highest  circles,  but 
money,  aided  by  the  stealthy  progress  of  democratic  ideas,  is 
making  breaches  in  the  aristocratic  entrenchments,  and  ere  many 
generations,  "  good  society"  in  Europe  will  present  somethinglike 
the  motley  concourse  that  it  does  with  us,  where,  the  social  ar- 
rangements having  no  support  from  the  political,  old  families 
go  down  and  new  ones  come  up,  and  the  power  of  a  man  on 
'Change  is  often  the  measure  of  his  position  in  fashionable  draw- 
ing-rooms.  This  is  but  the  chaos  of  transition :  the  soul  will  in 
time  assert  its  transcendant  privileges. 

In  Europe,  notwithstanding  occasional  intermarriages,  the  aris- 
tocratic prestige  still  prevails  against  plebeian  merit.  In  social 
longer  than  in  political  life,  the  nobility  naturally  retain  a  pre- 
dominance, that  is  of  course  exercised  despotically.  Although, 
since  the  invention  of  printing,  the  expansion  of  commerce,  and 


32  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  rapid  development  of  industry  and  science,  knowledge  and 
wealth,  the  sources  of  the  highest  power  in  communities,  have 
been  passing  out  of  the  hands  of  the  privileged  few,  still,  social 
advantages,  depending  upon  deep-rooted  ideas,  are  the  last  to  be 
forfeited,  and  the  nobility  throughout  Europe,  long  after  their  ex- 
clusion from  the  high  posts  m  the  State,  will  look  down  upon  the 
herd  of  plebeian  aspirants  to  ton,  just  as  the  andenne  noblesse  of 
France  did  upon  the  military  upstarts  of  Napoleon,  and  do  still 
upon  the  Court  of  Louis  Philippe.  And  this  from  a  real  superi- 
ority of  position. 

The  nobility  of  Europe, — the  early,  and  at  first  the  rightful  sole 
possessors  of  power  as  the  originally  strong  men ;  the  acknow- 
ledged monopolists  of  social  elevations ;  the  dispensers  of  place 
and  patronage  ;  the  recipients  and  in  turn  the  fountains  of  honor ; 
in  short,  the  controllers  with  kings  of  all  high  interests  and  lords 
of  etiquette  and  manners, — acquired,  by  the  cultivation  of  the 
stateliness  growing  out  of  courtly  usages  and  the  tone  contracted 
from  conscious  superiority,  an  easy  commanding  style  of  bearing 
and  intercourse,  which  was  of  a  natural  inward  growth,  the  un- 
forced expression  of  their  social  rank  and  being.  Now,  as  this 
social  rank  and  being  is  no  longer  attainable  by  others,  so  neither 
are  the  modes  of  life,  the  style  of  manners,  the  segregation  from 
the  people,  which  were  its  natural  products.  All  attempts  there- 
fore on  the  part  of  those,  who,  since  the  breaking  up  of  the  mono- 
polies of  knowledge  and  wealth,  are  now  sharing  their  possession 
with  the  old  nobility,  to  assume  too  their  bearing  and  style,  are  and 
must  be  a  bare  assumption,  a  hollow  imitation ;  and  not  merely 
as  such  an  inevitable  failure,  but  one  tainted  with  vulgarity,  the 
essence  of  which  is  false  pretension.  So  long  as  another  standard 
than  the  feudal  aristocratic  is  not  set  up  as  the  measure  of  social 
position,  there  will  be  war  between  the  old  regime,  which  in  its 
sphere  was  a  genuine  true  thing,  and  the  new,  which  being  an 
apery  of  it,  is  a  false  thiiLg.  In  the  end,  the  old,  no  longer  upheld 


ARISTOCRACY.  33 


by  law,  impoverished  by  idleness  and  debilitated  by  generations 
of  luxurious  inactivity,  will  have  to  succumb,  and  become  socially 
extinct,  or  absorbed  into  the  triumphant  new,  and  pedigrees  will 
grow  confused,  and  the  imagination  cease  to  invest  birth  with 
virtue. 

In  this  conflict  will  for  a  time  be  aggravated  the  most  repulsive 
quality  of  aristocratic  life.  The  feeling  of  superiority  over  one's 
fellows,  mere  personal  pride,  will  be  still  more  cherished.  Their 
children  are  already  bred  up  to  look  upon  themselves  as  better  than 
all  other  children.  Towards  their  fellow-men  a  sentiment  rather 
of  repulsion  than  sympathy  is  generated  in  the  members  of  a 
privileged  class.  Instead  of  keeping  their  hearts  open  with  liberal 
susceptibility  to  worth  and  excellence,  they  are  ever  on  the  alert 
to  fend  off  all  others  from  contact  with  themselves.  They  form  a 
narrow  circle,  living  to  themselves  on  sympathies  of  selfishness. 
These  feelings,  latent  while  their  rank  was  undisputed,  become 
active  against  plebeian  encroachment ;  while  their  plebeian  rivals 
and  imitators  cultivate  the  same  feeling  as  well  from  imitation, 
as  to  strengthen  their  new  state  against  the  aspiring  multitude 
still  below  them.  An  offspring  too  of  this  conflict  is  Fashion, 
which  is  an  effort  to  outvie  exclusiveness,  to  be  more  tonish  than 
haut  ton  itself.  Fashion  is  a  wingless  aspiration  after  elegance  ; 
a  brazen  usurpation ;  a  baseless  pretension  kept  alive  by  quick 
changes  of  aspect ;  an  impertinent  substitution  of  personality  for 
principle  ;  an  imposition  of  effrontery  upon  weakness  ;  a  carica- 
ture of  beauty  ;  a  restless  prosaic  straining  for  an  ideal ;  a  mock 
flower,  bloomless,  odorless  and  seedless. 

Although,  in  the  large  cities,  the  mimicry  of  European  ways 
evolves  out  of  our  prosaic  citizens  an  unavoidable  portion  of  vul- 
garity, the  corrective  of  republican  self-respect  is  ever  active ; 
and  amidst  much  false  aim  and  shallow  endeavor,  there  is  percep- 
tible a  growing  appreciation  of  the  genuine  and  true.  Already 
the  aspiring  nouveatt  riche  feels  that  culture  and  taste  are  the 
3* 


34  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

essence  of  social  excellence,  and  hastens  to  give  his  children  the 
advantages  himself  has  missed.  Where  there  is  natural  suscep- 
tibility of  polish,  education  and  republican  self-reliance  tell  at 
once  upon  the  second  generation,  and  at  times, — such  is  the  rich- 
ness of  nature, — a  man  springs  up  from  the  workshop,  and  while 
by  talent  he  attains  to  affluence,  attains  to  grace  and  courteous 
propriety  by  native  refinement  and  generosity  ;  and  totally  devoid 
of  the  grimaces,  the  sleek  well-tailored  outside,  the  money-jingling 
vulgarity  of  the  parvenu,  he  takes  his  place  as  a  gentleman  with- 
out the  English  ordeal  of  three  generations.  We  apply  a  practi- 
cal test  to  know  what  is  good  blood,  and  soon  recognize  him  for 
what  he  is.  Evidence  is  constantly  thrown  out  of  a  tendency  to- 
wards higher  things.  The  intellectual  lift  up  the  tastes,  and  the 
spiritual  the  desires,  for  other  wants  than  for  furniture  and  equipages. 
As  inequality  in  mental  faculties  among  men  is  a  law  of  nature, 
the  idea  of  a  "  best  society  "  is  real,  and  will  go  on  manifesting 
itself  more  and  more  distinctly,  working  constantly  upward  through 
impure  materials.  The  mind  will  by  degrees  straighten  itself 
into  better  proportions.  Factitious  and  grossly-bottomed  distinc- 
tions will  be  effaced.  In  our  country  we  have  compassed  a  vantage- 
ground  of  liberty,  whence  to  ascend  to  higher  platforms  of  social 
condition.  Grossly  do  they  underrate  the  worth  of  liberty,  who 
regard  security  of  person  and  property,  equality  before  the  law, 
freedom  of  speech  and  of  printing,  as  its  ripe  fruit.  These  are 
but  the  foundation  for  a  broader  and  more  beautiful  structure. 
Through  them  the  mind  will  brace  its  wings  and  sharpen  its  vision 
for  wider  sweeps  into  the  domain  of  the  possible ;  and  expanding 
with  unrestricted  inter-communion,  grow  in  brightness  and  benefi- 
cence. Proofs  of  this  progress  are  discernible  in  the  easier  eman- 
cipation from  soul-smothering  customs,  and  in  the  longings  and 
hopes  of  the  freest  minds.  In  this  higher  organization  the  gentle- 
man will  of  course  not  be  wanting  ;  for  no  well-developed  society 
could  be  without  nim,  in  whom,  as  Spenser  sings, 


BRUSSELS.  35 


"  The  gentle  mind  by  gentle  deed  is  known." 

Let  those  who  regret  the  decay  of  the  old-fashioned  gentleman, 
because  the  new-fashioned  one,  being  a  coarse  imitation  of  him, 
is,  like  all  imitations,  a  failure,  take  hope,  that  there  is  one  of  a 
higher  fashion  possible  and  already  forming,  in  whom  polite- 
ness, being  the  offspring  of  love  and  beauty,  shall  cease  borrow- 
ing of  falsehood  ;  in  whom  refinement  shall  not  be  the  superficial 
show  of  conventional  discipline,  but  a  spontaneous  emanation 
from  the  purified  mind  ;  courtesy  be  free  from  pride,  and  elevation 
be  enjoyed  by  right  neither  of  pedigree  nor  Plutus,  but  solely  by 
natural  endowment,  be  acknowledged  as  ungrudgingly  as  differ, 
ence  of  stature,  and  sit  on  the  possessor  as  unconsciously  as  flow- 
ers on  stalks,  and  like  them  dispense  beauty  all  around. 

BOPPART,  on  the  Rhine,  July,  1841. 

After  spending  six  weeks  most  pleasantly  at  Antwerp,  we 
turned  our  steps  towards  the  Rhine,  stopping  but  a  day  in  Brus- 
sels, to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  pictures  in  the  Museum,  a  look  at 
the  painted  windows  of  the  Church  of  St.  Gudule,  and  some 
insight  into  the  manufacture  of  Brussels  lace.  We  didn't  care 
to  see  Palaces.  We  had  been  paced  through  those  of  Paris  and 
its  neighborhood,  and  Palaces  are  all  alike ;  on  the  outside,  huge, 
overgrown,  depopulated-looking  edifices,  and  in  the  inside,  suite 
upon  suite  of  lofty  rooms  and  halls,  where  upholstery,  with  its 
glittering  gildings  and  silks,  keeps  repeating  its  short  circle  of 
adornment.  Brussels  is  a  cheerful,  sunny  city,  but  it  is  always 
associated  in  my  mind  with  its  little  ambition  of  being  a  little 
Paris,  and  with  its  sub-population  of  questionable  and  vulgar 
English,  that  taint  its  atmosphere.  I  was  told  at  Antwerp  of  an 
Englishman  and  his  family,  who  came  there  to  live,  although  a 
dull  town  compared  with  Brussels,  because,  as  he  said,  he  had  a 
good  name  at  home,  and  he  wouldn't  have  it  blasted  by  a  resi- 
dence at  Brussels, 


36  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

From  Brussels  steam  carried  us  in  a  few  hours  through  the 
fat,  well-tilled  land  to  Liege,  the  Sheffield  of  Belgium.  The 
railroad  not  being  finished  beyond  Liege,  we  there  took  post-horses. 
The  country  all  about  Liege  lifts  itself  briskly  up  into  hills,  and 
the  road  thence  to  Aix-la-Chapelle  offers  lively  landscapes  to 
the  traveller's  eye.  Before  reaching  Aix  we  passed  the  Prussian 
frontier.  After  fifteen  years  I  found  myself  again  in  Germany : 
the  strong,  rich  tones  of  the  language  came  back  familiarly  to 
my  ears.  They  came  laden  with  memories  of  kindness,  and 
enjoyments,  and  profit.  My  re-entrance  into  Germany  was  one 
of  the  happiest  hours  of  the  journey ;  nor  was  it  marred  by  vexa- 
tions at  the  Prussian  custom-house,  through  which  we  were 
allowed  to  pass  after  a  nominal  search.  It  is  one  of  the  import- 
ant events  in  a  traveller's  career,  the  crossing  of  a  boundary. 
Another  variety  of  the  species  man,  with  new  fixtures  and  envi- 
ronments. Another  people,  another  language,  another  look  to 
the  land  and  everything  on  it.  Other  sights  and  other  sounds  to 
the  freshly  busied  senses ;  and  to  the  interior  mind, — alive  in 
each  region  with  its  peculiar  heroes  and  benefactors, — other 
inmates.  History  unrolls  another  leaf  of  her  illuminated  testa- 
ment, and  we  tell  over  again  another  treasure  she  has  bequeathed 
us. 

In  Aix-la-Chapelle,  the  birth  and  burial  place  of  Charlemagne, 
famous  since  the  Romans  for  its  sulphur  baths,  we  spent  but  a 
night,  and  continued  our  way  to  strike  the  Rhine  at  Cologne. 
Thence  to  Gottingen  was,  by  the  nearest  route  through  West- 
phalia, hardly  more  than  a  two  days'  journey.  It  would  have 
been  but  a  melancholy  pleasure  to  re-visit  the  noble  old  Univer- 
sity, now  made  ignoble  by  the  base-mindedness  of  her  rulers. 
What  a  fall,  with  her  seven  hundred  students,  from  her  palmy 
state  in  1824-25,  when  she  counted  over  fifteen  hundred; 
and  when,  drawn  from  all  quarters  of  the  globe  by  her  high 
renown,  we  sometimes  assembled  together  under  the  Cathedra  of 


GOTTINGEN  AND  WEIMAR.  37 

a  single  Professor,  listeners  from  North  America  and  from  South 
America,  from  England  and  from  Italy,  from  France  and  from 
Sweden,  from  Russia  and  from  Switzerland,  from  Poland  and 
from  every  State  in  Germany.  The  galaxy  of  teachers  she  then 
had,  the  successors  of  others  as  eminent,  the  cowardly  policy 
since  pursued  towards  her,  has  prevented  from  being  renewed. 
Gottingen  has  ceased  to  be  what  Napoleon  called  her,  "  1'Univer- 
site  de  1'Europe."  She  has  dwindled  into  provincialism. — And 
beyond  was  Weimar,  enwreathed  to  all  cultivated  imaginations 
with  a  unique  glory.  In  his  youth,  the  Grand  Duke  Charles 
Augustus, — a  natural  leader  among  men,  for  fifty  years  the  com- 
panion of  Goethe, — belted  his  little  Capital  round  with  the  bright- 
est stars  of  German  genius.  During  his  long  life  they  illuminated 
and  refined  his  court,  and  were  a  blessing  to  his  people  ;  and 
since  his  death,  their  sparkling  names  form  a  diadem  round  his, 
that  outshines  the  crowns  of  haughty  Kings.  At  the  time  of  my 
visit  in  1825,  the  Grand  Duke  and  his  congenial  Duchess,  and 
the  greatest  of  his  poetic  band,  Goethe,  were  still  alive ;  and  over 
the  hospitalities  of  the  Palace,  the  remarkable  beauty  of  the  ladies 
of  his  court  threw  a  fascination  that  made  it  like  a  fairy  castle. — 
Still  further  was  Dresden,  with  its  natural  charms  and  its  treasures 
of  Art.  But  I  was  not  now  to  behold  those  well  remembered  spots. 
Our  destiny  rules  us  most  despotically  when  our  will  seems  freest. 
We  arrived  at  Cologne  early  enough  in  the  afternoon  to  go  out 
and  look  at  the  Cathedral,  which,  finished,  would  have  been,  as 
well  from  its  size  as  its  beauty,  the  foremost  among  Gothic 
Churches.  Most  of  the  Gothic  Cathedrals  are,  like  this,  unfin- 
ished. The  conceptions  of  their  artists  were  loftier  than  the 
power  or  will  of  those  who  supplied  the  means  for  their  execution. 
Their  incompleteness  is  symbolical  of  the  short-comings  of  the 
noblest  minds  in  their  aspirations.  Our  road  now  lay  up  the 
Rhine,  but  the  river  only  enjoys  the  embrace  of  its  hills,  and  the 
animating  company  of  the  old  castles  that  crown  them,  between 


SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


Bonn  and  Mayence.  Bonn  is  twelve  miles  above  Cologne.  Here, 
on  my  way  from  Gottingen  fifteen  years  before,  coming  down  the 
Rhine,  partly  on  foot,  before  the  day  of  steamboats  in  Germany, 
I  had  stopped,  with  an  English  fellow-traveller  and  student,  to  see 
Niebuhr  and  A.  W.  Schlegel,  who  were  Professors  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Bonn.  Schlegel  kept  us  waiting  some  time  in  a  neat 
drawing-room,  where  hung  a  portrait  of  Madame  de  Stael.  He 
then  came  in  hurriedly,  adjusting  the  tie  of  his  cravat.  He  was 
affable  and  lively,  and  in  his  dress,  bearing  and  conversation, 
seemed  anxious  to  sink  the  Professor  and  appear  the  man  of 
the  world.  Niebuhr  was  out,  but  came  in  an  hour  to  the 
Hotel  to  see  us.  He  was  a  tall,  striking,  man  and  spoke  English 
perfectly.  The  sight  of  an  American  seemed  to  excite  his  mind. 
He  plied  me  with  questions  about  our  institutions  and  customs. 
Doubtless  his  thoughts  were  often  busied  and  puzzled  with  the 
new  historical  phenomenon  of  the  great  Republic,  whose  huge 
bulk  was  heaving  itself  up  portentously  in  the  far  west.  But 
Niebuhr  was  not  the  man  to  seize  its  significance  or  embrace  its 
grandeur.  His  mind  was  exegetical  and  critical,  rather  than 
constructive  and  prophetic. 

We  are  now  in  the  heart  of  Rhenish  Prussia.  The  civil 
government  of  Prussia  is  after  the  military  model.  The  king  is 
the  commander.in-chief  of  the  nation,  and  the  schoolmaster  is  his 
drill-sergeant.  The  boys  are  taught  in  such  a  way  that  the  men 
shall  fall  readily  into  the  ranks  of  obedience.  A  uniform  is  put 
upon  their  minds,  and,  as  with  the  rank  and  file  of  a  regiment, 
the  uniformity  is  more  looked  to  than  the  fitness.  The  govern- 
ment does  all  it  can  to  save  men  the  pain  of  thought  and  choice, 
and  if  it  could  would  do  everything.  The  officers  of  administra- 
tion having  the  intelligence  and  industry  of  the  cultivated  German 
mind,  and  these  being  everywhere  the  German  solidity  and  hon- 
esty, the  system  bears  some  good  fruit,  such  virtue  is  there  in 
order  and  method,  though  only  of  the  mechanical  sort.  Prussia 


THE  GERMANS.  39 


is  a  well-managed  estate,  not  a  well-governed  country  ;  for  good 
government  implies  a  recognition  of  the  high  nature  of  humanity, 
the  first  want  of  which  is  freedom.  The  only  basis  whereon  the 
moral  being  of  man  can  be  built  up  is  individual  independence. 
To  reach  that  higher  condition  of  freedom,  where  he  shall  be 
emancipated  from  the  tyranny  of  self,  of  his  own  passions,  he 
needs  first  of  all  to  be  free  from  that  of  his  fellows.  The  one 
freedom  is  only  possible  through  the  other. 

That  the  Germans  are  a  breed  that  can  keep  pace  with  the 
best  in  the  development  of  civilisation,  they  have  given  manifold 
proof  in  achievements  by  word  and  deed.  They  are  a  strong- 
brained,  deep-hearted  race.  What  creative  power  have  they  not 
exhibited  in  letters,  in  science,  in  Art !  With  what  soul  and 
steadfastness  they  backed  their  mighty  Luther,  in  his  great  strife 
for  mental  independence  !  How  they  rose,  like  a  giant  from  his 
sleep,  against  French  usurpation,  and  with  Leipzic  paid  Napoleon 
for  Jena !  The  conditions  were  reversed.  At  Jena,  Napoleon, 
though  with  dementing  egotism  he  had  set  a  crown  upon  his  head, 
was  still  the  leader  of  a  freshly  emancipated  people  warring 
against  old  tyrannies  :  at  Leipzic  he  was  the  hardened  despot, 
with  no  instruments  but  his  legions,  and  no  props  to  his  vulgar 
throne  but  force  and  fear  ;  while  the  monarchs  of  Germany  and 
Russia  were  upborne  on  the  hearts  of  the  liberty-seeking  people. 
The  sceptred  weaklings,  whose  capitals  had  been  a  prey  to  the 
conqueror,  became  suddenly  strong  with  the  strength  of  wrath- 
swollen  multitudes.  This  wrath  is  ever  ready  to  be  rekindled. 
Its  next  outburst  will  not  be  against  foreign  oppressors. 

At  Bonn  we  stopped  but  to  change  horses.  Now  it  is  that  the 
Rhine  discloses  its  treasures.  Two  or  three  miles  above  Bonn, 
we  passed  under  the  ancient  Castle  of  Godesberg ;  a  little  further 
that  of  Rolandseck  ;  opposite,  on  the  other  side  of  the  water,  the 
Drachenfels  gives  life  to  the  "Seven  Mountains;"  and  midway 
between  them,  lying  softly  in  the  low  river,  is  the  Island  with  the 


40  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

old  Convent  of  Nounenwerth.  Around  are  green  valleys,  and 
plentiful  fields,  and  grape-mantled  steeps,  and  frequent  villages 
and  compact  towns.  And  thus,  the  whole  way  from  Bonn  to 
Mayence,  you  drive  through  a  double  population.  Above,  the 
sides  of  the  castle-crowned  hills  are  alive  with  mailed  cavalcades, 
bugles  are  winding  from  the  turrets,  fair  ladies  are  leaning  over 
parapets  waving  their  sweet  welcomes  and  farewells ;  while  be- 
low, through  the  tranquil  movements  of  a  secure  industry,  the 
noiseless  labors  of  tillage,  the  hum  of  busy  towns,  you  roll  smoothly 
forward  on  a  macadamized  road,  and  try  to  stir  up  your  phleg- 
matic postillion  to  a  race  with  a  steamboat  abreast  of  you  on  the 
river.  To  eyes  at  all  open  to  natural  beauty,  this  region,  un- 
peopled, rude  and  naked,  were  a  feast ;  but  twice-touched  as  it 
is  by  the  productive  hand  of  man,  the  broken  shadows  of  ancient 
strongholds  checkering  the  turfed  flanks  of  the  cannon-guarded 
fortress  ;  the  images  of  spires,  of  cottages,  of  wooded  heights,  of 
ruins,  of  rocky  precipices,  of  palaces,  all  playing  together  in  the 
ripple  of  the  sinuous  stream ;  the  old  river,  fresh  and  lively  as  in 
the  days  of  Arminius,  with  its  legends,  its  history,  and  its  warm 
present  life ;  senses,  thought,  imagination,  all  addressed  at  once 
amid  scenes  steeped  in  beauty ; — 'tis  a  region  unmatched,  and 
worth  a  long  journey  to  behold. 

As  we  approached  Coblentz,  Ehrenbreitstein,  the  Gibraltar  of 
Germany,  lifted  high  its  armed  head,  frowning  towards  France. 
The  next  morning  we  were  again  on  the  enchanted  road,  and  in 
two  hours  reached  Boppart.  Turning  up  hill  to  the  right,  just  on 
entering  the  town,  we  ascended  to  a  large  substantial  old  pile 
directly  behind  and  above  it.  This  was  formerly  the  convent  of 
Marienberg,  for  noble  ladies,  most  solidly  and  commodiously 
built  for  a  household  of  two  hundred  ;  seated  in  a  valley  between 
hills,  with  shady  walks,  and  springs,  and  fountains,  and  broad 
terraces,  whence  you  look  over  the  old  town,  founded  by  Drusus, 
into  the  river,  now  enlivened  almost  hourly  with  sociable  steam. 


THE  WATER-CURE  41 


boats.  The  convent  has  been  converted  into  a  water-cure  esta- 
blishment. While  at  Antwerp  several  small  works  on  the  water- 
cure  had  fallen  into  my  hands,  and  impressed  my  mind  at  once 
almost  to  conviction  with  the  truth  of  its  principles.  I  will  en- 
deavor  to  give  you  a  sketch  of  what  it  is  and  what  it  does.  I 
cannot  better  begin  than  with  an  account  of  my  own  daily  pro- 
ceeding. 

At  five  in  the  morning  I  am  waked  up  by  a  bath-attendant. 
Having  stripped  the  narrow  bed,  he  lays  on  the  bare  mattress 
a  thick  blanket,  wherein  he  wraps  me  closely  from  neck  to  heels ; 
then  another  blanket  doubled  is  laid  on  and  tightly  tucked  in,  and 
then  another,  and  then  a  light  feather  bed.  This  is  fitly  called 
being  packed  up.  In  about  an  hour  I  begin  to  perspire  ;  where- 
upon the  window  is  opened  to  let  in  fresh  air,  and  half  a  tumbler 
of  cold  water  is  administered,  which  draught,  repeated  every 
quarter  of  an  hour,  promotes  perspiration.  After  perspiring  for 
forty  or  fifty  minutes,  I  am  unpacked,  get  streaming  out  of  the 
blankets  into  an  empty  bath-tub  at  the  bed-side,  when  instantly  a 
couple  of  large  buckets  of  cold  water  are  poured  over  my  head 
and  shoulders.  For  a  minute  or  two  my  hands  and  the  attend- 
ant's are  swiftly  plied  all  over  the  surface,  as  if  to  rub  in  the 
water.  Then  comes  a  thorough  dry  rubbing  with  a  coarse  linen 
sheet,  and  after  dressing  quickly,  a  walk  abroad  for  half  an  hour 
or  more  to  support  and  hasten  re-action,  drinking  the  while  from 
the  fountain  two  or  three  glasses  of  water.  On  the  breakfast- 
table  are  wheat  and  rye  bread,  butter,  milk,  and  water,  and  fruit 
for  those  who  choose  it ;  no  tea,  nor  coffee,  nor  anything  warm. 
Between  eleven  and  twelve  I  take  a  sitting-bath  of  from  fifteen  to 
twenty  minutes'  duration,  on  coming  out  of  which  I  go  up  to  the 
top  of  the  hills  as  if  the  muscles  that  had  been  immersed  were 
turned  into  wings.  Two  or  three  more  tumblers  of  water  are 
drunk  during  the  exercise.  Dinner,  at  one,  is  never  smoking 
hot,  and  consists  for  the  most  part  of  beef,  mutton,  and  fowls 


42  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE 

roasted  or  boiled,  with  vegetables,  followed  by  a  simple  dessert. 
No  spices  are  used  in  cooking,  and  water  is  the  only  beverage. 
Bathing  re-commences  about  four,  a  long  interval  being  prescribed 
after  each  meal.  My  afternoon  bath  is  generally  what  is  called 
a  staub-bad,  literally,  a  dust-bath,  which  is  in  fact  a  shower-bath, 
except  that  the  shower,  instead  of  falling  from  above,  comes  late- 
rally from  circular  tubes  in  the  midst  of  which  you  stand,  and 
which,  the  moment  the  water  is  let  on,  pour  upon  you  a  thousand 
fine  streams.  Resolution  must  be  well  seconded  by  quick 
friction  with  the  hands,  to  keep  you  within  this  refrigerating  circle 
two  or  three  minutes.  After  this  is  the  best  time  for  a  long  stroll 
over  the  hills  or  along  the  shores  of  the  Rhine.  Supper,  between 
six  and  seven,  is  much  the  same  as  breakfast ;  nothing  hot,  nothing 
stimulating.  All  meals  are  alike  in  the  voracity  of  appetite  with 
which  they  are  eaten.  I  wear  all  day  over  the  stomach  a  water- 
band  or  compress, — a  double  fold  of  coarse  linen,  six  or  seven 
inches  wide  and  about  twenty  long,  half  wrung  out  in  cold  water, 
over  which  is  tied  a  dry  one  of  the  same  material  and  thickness, 
a  little  broader  and  meeting  round  the  body.  This,  excluding  the 
air,  prevents  evaporation  from  the  wet  bandage,  and  keeps  it 
always  warm.  The  compress  is  re- wet  every  two  or  three  hours. 
Its  effect  is,  to  draw  more  life  into  the  weakened  stomach. 

A  similar  course  is  daily  followed  by  the  rest  of  the  inmates. 
Instead  of  the  affusion  from  buckets,  most  plunge  directly  into  the 
full-bath  after  the  sweating  in  the  morning.  Some  are  wrapt  in 
a  wet  sheet,  within  the  blankets,  in  which  they  lie  about  an  hour. 
Then  there  is  the  potent  douche,  a  stream  of  two  to  four  inches 
diameter,  falling  from  ten  to  twenty  feet  perpendicularly,  which  is 
taken  when  the  body  has  become  invigorated  and  the  skin  open- 
ened  by  the  other  applications.  There  are,  moreover,  local  baths ; 
foot-baths,  head-baths,  eye-baths. 

The  number  of  patients  in  this  establishment  at  present  is  about 
eighty,  with  all  kinds  of  chronic  maladies, — gout,  rheumatism, 


THE  WATER-CURE.  43 


neuralgia,  dyspepsia,  deafness,  lameness,  paralysis,  &c.  Fill  up 
the  &c.  with  every  name  that  has  been  coined  to  express  the 
bodily  afflictions  of  man,  and  not  one  that  is  curable,  but  can  be 
cured  by  means  of  water.  By  means  of  water,  note  that ;  for 
water  can  cure  no  disease ;  it  can  but  help  or  force  the  body  itself 
to  cure  it.  What  more  does  medical  Art  profess  to  do  ?  No 
intelligent  physician  aims  at  aught  but  so  to  rouse  or  direct  the 
vis  medicatrix  natura,  the  curative  force  of  nature,  that  it  may 
throw  off  disease.  To  his  lancet,  his  purgatives,  his  emetics,  his 
narcotics,  his  stimulants,  he  ascribes  a  purely  secondary  agency, 
that  of  touching  the  spring  of  life  in  a  way  that  it  shall  rebound 
against  the  evil  that  presses  it.  All  his  appliances  and  efforts  and 
doses  have  but  one  single  aim,  namely,  to  act  on  the  vital  force. 
In  awakening,  seconding,  guiding  this,  consists  his  whole  skill. 
Herein,  then,  the  water  and  drug  systems  are  alike.  Most  unlike 
are  they  in  the  innocence  and  efficacy  of  their  means,  and  in  the 
success  of  their  endeavors. 

Patients  are  here,  as  at  mineral  watering  places,  on  account 
of  chronic  diseases,  that  is,  diseases  that  have  taken  up  their  abode 
in  the  body,  because  the  body  has  not  vigor  left  to  eject  them. 
1  hese  complaints  the  Faculty  hardly  ever  profess  to  eradicate.  In 
most  patients  so  afflicted,  disease  and  the  Doctor  have  a  joint  life- 
estate.  Change  of  air,  temperance,  quiet,  diet,  are  the  alleviating 
prescriptions  to  some.  Permanent  restoration  is  seldom  promised 
by  the  upright  physician.  Priesnitz  and  his  disciples  undertake 
to  cure,  and  do  cure,  many  such  ;  and  by  means  of  water  nearly 
all  are  curable,  where  there  is  constitutional  vitality  enough  for 
re-action,  and  no  organic  lesion.  The  process  is  as  simple  as 
nature's  laws.  The  world  will  soon  wonder,  as  it  has  done  at 
other  revelations  of  genius,  why  it  was  so  long  undiscovered. 
Priesnilz  has  revealed  the  power  there  is  in  water.  With  this 
one  agent  he  can  co-work  with  all  the  processes  and  movements 
of  nature  in  the  human  organism.  He  can  draw  the  vital  stream 


44  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

from  one  part  to  another ;  he  can  unload  the  congested  blood, 
vessels  ;  he  can  quicken  or  slacken  the  action  of  the  heart ;  he 
can  elevate  or  depress  the  nervous  energy.  And  his  agent,  in  this 
at  once  subtle  and  powerful  co-operation,  is  not  a  poison,  as  is 
almost  every  drug,  never  weakens,  as  does  every  bleeding,  but  is 
a  pure  nourishing  element,  as  precious  to  the  body  as  the  vital  air 
itself,  and  having  with  its  every  texture  such  sympathy,  that  four 
parts  out  of  five  of  the  constituents  of  the  blood  are  water.  In 
this  consists  much  of  its  virtue  as  a  curative  means.  It  is  not 
enough  that  it  be  cold  :  Priesnitz  rejects  all  mineral  waters,  and 
even  salt  sea-water. 

The  first  step  towards  a  restoration  of  health  is  a  re-subjection 
of  the  body  to  natural  laws,  as  regards  food,  drink,  air,  and  exer- 
cise. Further ;  as  the  vital  energy  is  the  final  source  of  restora- 
tion, it  is  necessary,  when  disease  has  become  fixed  in  the  body, 
that  this  energy  be  directed  against  it  with  undivided  aim.  Hence, 
there  must  be  withdrawal  from  business  and  care  and  serious 
mental  occupation  ;  and  therefore  it  is,  that  the  cure  of  chronic 
complaints  can,  in  most  cases,  only  be  undertaken  with  hope  of 
success  at  a  water-cure  establishment.  These  first  conditions 
being  satisfied,  under  which  the  body  begins  at  once  to  feel  fresh 
vigor,  the  next  step  is,  to  accelerate  this  invigoration.  The  forti- 
fying effects  of  cold  bathing  are  universally  known.  Without 
considering  now  the  various  forms  of  its  application,  devised  by 
the  sagacity  of  Priesnitz,  the  mere  loss  of  caloric  in  a  cold  bath 
necessarily  stimulates  the  appetite.  More  food  is  called  for  to 
supply  the  lost  heat.  The  quickened  respiration  in  the  bath  and 
during  the  rapid  exercise  it  provokes,  supply  a  correspondent  in- 
crease of  oxygen.  As  Liebig  simply  and  beautifully  explains, 
animal  heat  is  the  result  of  the  combination  within  the  body  be- 
tween the  oxygen  brought  in  through  the  lungs,  and  the  carbon 
and  hydrogen  in  the  food.  The  oxygen  consumes,  literally  burns 
up,  the  waste  of  the  body,  the  dead  particles  that  have  served  their 


THE  WATER-CURE.  45 


purpose  of  nourishing  the  vital  activity.  The  fire  burns  more 
briskly.  By  the  increase  of  food,  fresh  material  is  furnished  more 
rapidly  ;  the  burning  of  the  old  keeps  pace  through  the  increased 
influx  of  oxygen  ;  and  thus  the  transformations  in  the  body,  the 
source  and  index  of  health,  go  on  with  increased  quickness,  and 
the  strength  grows  in  proportion.  A  man  with  a  good  fund  of 
vitality  left,  who  takes  three  or  four  cold  baths  and  drinks  a  dozen 
glasses  of  cold  water  daily,  will  eat  just  double  his  usual  quantity, 
and  that  of  the  plainest  fare,  and  with  a  relish  that  he  never  felt 
at  the  costliest  banquet,  and  a  sweetness  and  fulness  of  flavor,  that 
recall  the  time  of  his  fast-growing  boyhood. 

'Tis  a  familiar  fact,  that  if  a  fragment  of  bone,  for  instance,  in 
case  of  fracture,  be  left  loose  and  unknit  up  when  the  fracture 
heals,  it  will  be  thrown  out  to  the  surface  by  the  vital  force. 
Where  there  is  life  enough,  the  same  self-purifying,  self-protect- 
ing effort  will  be  made  against  whatever  arrests  or  disturbs  the 
vital  process,  against  every  form  of  disease  therefore.  The  third 
step  in  the  proceeding  of  Priesnitz  is,  to  encourage  and  assist  this 
tendency  by  more  specific  means  than  the  mere  addition  of  strength 
by  cold  bathing. 

How  is  the  determination  from  the  centre  to  the  surface  to  be 
promoted  ? 

By  action  on  the  skin  through  the  sweating  in  blankets,  and  the 
CDaking  in  the  wet  sheet  inclosed  by  blankets.  The  power  ot 
these  applications  cannot  be  conceived  but  by  one  who  has  seen 
them,  I  may  add,  felt  them.  An  activity  is  awakened  in  the  skin 
unknown  to  it  before,  and  this  without  any  foreign  or  hostile  appli- 
ances. Under  the  air- tight  blankets  softly  oozes  out  the  perspira- 
tion ;  the  wet  sheet  sucks  at  the  whole  surface,  like  a  gentle  all- 
embracing  poultice.  The  skin  is  in  a  glow — a  glow  which  it 
owes  to  no  heat  but  that  beneath  it.  The  life  of  the  whole  body 
is  drawn  to  and  towards  it.  In  this  state  of  heightened  animation 
it  re-acts  against  the  cold  bath  with  alacrity.  One  or  other  of 


46  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

these  processes — according  to  the  disease,  condition  or  tempera- 
ment  of  the  patient — repeated  daily,  keeps  the  currents,  so  to 
speak,  always  setting  outwardly.  The  skin,  that  great  auxiliary 
of  the  lungs,  grows  elastic,  regains  its  functions,  that  had  become 
lamed  by  the  destructive  practice  of  swathing  in  flannel,  and  the 
neglect  of  cold  ablutions,  needed  daily  for  the  whole  surface  as 
much  as  for  the  face.  Chronic  congestions  and  inflammations  are 
thus  gradually  relieved  ;  the  system  feels  lightened.  Morbi.ic 
matter  is  expelled.  That  it  is  morbific,  is  often  known  by  its 
odor  and  color.  Frequently,  too,  what  medicines  have  been  taken, 
sometimes  years  before,  is  discovered  by  the  odor  of  the  perspira- 
tion ;  as  valerian,  iodine,  assafsetida,  sulphur,  mercury. 

The  sitting  bath  performs  the  important  part  of  drawing  the 
blood  from  the  brain,  and  of  invigorating  the  great  nerves  of  the 
stomach  and  bowels,  which  in  nearly  all  chronic  complaints  have 
become  weakened  by  drugs,  heating  food  and  drinks,  and  seden- 
tary habits.  When,  by  the  sweating  or  the  wet  sheet,  the  sitting 
bath,  and  copious  daily  draughts  of  cold  water,  the  skin  has  been 
opened  and  animated,  the  internal  skin — the  lining  membrane  of 
the  lungs  and  digestive  organs — stimulated,  and  all  the  functions 
invigorated,  so  that  the  system  is  restored  in  a  degree  to  its  pris- 
tine power  of  resistance,  then  is  applied  the  most  vigorous  of  all 
the  water  agents,  the  douche,  which  rouses  to  the  utmost  the  ner- 
vous energy,  and  thus  contributes  much  towards  putting  the  body 
in  a  state  to  cope  with  its  foe. 

Now  the  aim  of  all  these  purifying  energizing  processes  is,  to 
bring  on  a  crisis,  that  is,  an  effort  of  the  system  to  rid  itself  of  the 
disease  which  obstructs  and  oppresses  it.  The  crisis  is,  in  fact, 
in  strong  cases,  an  acute  attack,  taking  the  form  of  diarrhrea,  more 
or  less  active  or  prolonged,  or  of  vomiting,  or  cutaneous  eruption, 
or  fever.  Sometimes  these  symptoms  come  one  after  the  other, 
or  even  several  at  once.  With  knowledge  and  judgment,  the 
crisis  is  guided  surely  to  a  cure.  When  the  disease  is  not  of  long- 


THE  WATER-CURE.  47 


standing,  the  functional  derangement  not  being  firmly  established, 
the  cure  is  effected  of  course  much  more  quickly  and  often  with-' 
out  apparent  crisis.  On  the  other  hand,  in  aggravated  cases, 
when  the  body,  in  the  phrase  of  Priesnitz,  is  very  full  of  bad  stuff, 
the  patient  may  have  to  go  through  two  or  three  crises,  before  his 
system  is  perfectly  purged  of  disease.  Once  through  the  crisis, 
the  patient  is  cured,  cured  effectually,  radically,  not  apparently 
and  temporarily,  but  permanently  and  absolutely.  The  nervous 
energy  is  renovated,  the  skin  is  restored  to  the  full  performance 
of  its  important  functions,  the  digestive  apparatus  works  perfectly, 
the  blood  flows  actively  and  impartially,  no  morbid  condition  lurks 
in  any  of  the  tissues,  the  transformations  go  on  briskly  and  smooth- 
ly, life  plays  lightly  and  evenly  through  the  whole  organism  ;  the 
man  is  well.  With  healthy  habits  he  can  keep  so  all  his  days, 
and  end  them  with  an  easy  natural  death,  not  the  hard  unnatural 
one  that  most  are  doomed  to,  dying  of  disease  and  the  Doctor. 

Visitors  are  astonished  at  the  cheerfulness  of  the  inmates.  A 
merrier  company  is  not  to  be  found  on  the  joyous  Rhine.  Such 
a  happy  Hospital  is  a  phenomenon.  No  brilliant  balls,  nor  luxu- 
rious lounges,  nor  dainty  viands,  nor  fragrant  wines,  nor  gambling 
saloons,  are  needed  here  as  at  the  neighboring  Ems  and  Wiesba- 
den, to  charm  away  ennui  and  make  the  day  endurable.  Noon 
drives  away  morning,  and  evening  noon,  ere  we  have  done  with 
them  ;  and  when  we  lay  our  heads  down  at  night,  so  quick  and 
dream-tight  is  sleep,  that  morning  is  upon  us  again  as  if  he  had 
but  waited  for  the  closing  of  our  lids,  and  nature  had  compressed 
hours  into  moments  that  they  might  lie  weightless  on  our  brains. 
Such  is  the  virtue  of  water,  which  at  once  soothes  and  exhilarates. 
It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  the  invalids  here  are  all  outcasts, 
unfortunates  sentenced  by  Doctors'  edicts  to  perpetual  banishment 
from  the  realm  of  health.  Hence  the  slowness  of  the  cure,  which 
few  who  have  the  time  have  the  perseverance  to  complete.  Most 
of  us  are  impatient  if  complaints  of  years'  standing  are  not  washed 


48  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

out  in  a  few  weeks.  Thus,  but  a  small  number  earn  the  full 
benefit  of  a  radical  cure ;  more  are  partially  relieved  of  their 
pains;  the  rest,  and  largest  proportion,  only  get  strength  and 
habits  wherewith  the  better  to  bear  them. 

But  it  is  in  acute  diseases,  that  the  triumphs  of  the  water-cure 
are  most  signal  and  astounding.  Here  its  results  look  like  mira- 
cles, so  rapid  are  they,  so  regenerative,  so  complete. 

I  have  said,  that  the  crisis  is  an  acute  attack.  On  the  other 
hand,  an  acute  disease  is  but  a  crisis  brought  about  by  the  vital 
force  of  nature,  unexalted  by  the  water-processes.  Priesnitz 
cures  all  such,  rapidly,  with  ease,  with  certainty.  What  he  is 
always  striving  to  produce,  is  here  brought  to  his  hand.  An  acute 
disease  being  a  strenuous  effort  that  the  organism  makes  to  throw 
out  the  enemy,  Priesnitz  comes  in  helpfully,  by  cooling  the  skin 
and  opening  its  pores.  This  sounds  very  simple  and  easy.  Is 
there  in  Christendom  a  physician  who  can  cool  the  skin  and  open 
the  pores  at  will  in  a  burning  fever  ?  Not  all  the  schools  and 
systems  of  all  countries  through  long  ages  of  experiment  and  woe, 
have  discovered  the  nature  of  fevers  and  the  art  of  treating  them. 
In  spite  of  his  tonics,  his  diaphoretics,  his  antiphlogistics,  his 
lancet,  Death  strides  past  the  Doctor,  and  seizes  upon  the  young 
and  the  robust,  as  boldly  and  surely  now  as  a  thousand  years 
ago.  Let  the  world,  then,  rejoice.  Glad  tidings  have  come  from 
Graeffenberg.  Some  of  the  scourges  of  mankind  are  stayed.  The 
cholera,  the  scarlei-fever,  the  small-pox,  are  shorn  of  their  terrors. 
At  this  proclamation  some  will  smile,  some  will  chide,  the  most 
will  ejaculate  incredulous.  Facts  upon  facts  are  there,  and  thou- 
sands have  witnessed  them  and  spread  afar  the  news  of  the  bless, 
ing,  and  those  who  have  looked  at  them  studiously,  know  why 
they  are  and  that  they  must  be.  Inflammations  and  fevers  are 
perfectly  manageable  by  Priesnitz  and  his  pupils.  What  is  the 
glory  of  Harvey  and  Jenner  to  that  of  the  German  peasant  ? 

From  the  times  of  Hippocrates  and  Galen,  down  to  those  of 


THE  WATER-CURE.  49 


Currie  and  Hoffman,  many  are  the  Doctors,  as  set  forth  in  the 
books  brought  out  by  Priesnitz's  doings,  who  have  cured  diseases 
with  water.  But  the  shrewdest  of  them  had  only  glimpses  of  its 
power.  Nature,  as  is  her  way,  has  constantly  thrown  out  hints 
to  them,  and  temptations  with  facts ;  but  not  in  one  of  them  be- 
fore Priesnitz  did  the  facts  inbreed  thoughts,  that,  wrought  upon 
by  the  awakened  spirit  of  research,  led  it  on  to  the  detection  of 
the  laws,  whereby  this  one  element  becomes  a  curative  means  of 
an  efficacy  beyond  the  liveliest  hopes  of  medical  enthusiasts. 
Still,  "  the  Faculty "  say,  forsooth,  there  is  nothing  new  in 
Priesnitz's  pretended  discoveries.  Is  there  nothing  new  in  put- 
ting a  patient  daily  for  months  through  four  or  five  cold  baths, 
one  or  two  of  them  while  his  skin  is  dripping  with  perspiration 
produced  by  his  own  warmth,  and  thereby  curing  him  radically 
of  the  gout  ?  Is  it  not  new  to  thrust  a  man  delirious  into  a  cold 
shallow  bath,  and  there  keep  him  for  nine  hours  with  constant 
friction  on  his  legs  and  pouring  of  cold  water  on  his  head,  and 
thus  to  restore  him  in  twenty-four  hours  ?  Who  ever  before  put 
a  child  with  a  brain  fever  through  forty  wet  sheets  in  as  many 
successive  half  hours,  and  by  so  doing  completely  subdued  in 
three  days  a  disease,  whose  cure  would  have  been  doubtful  with 
drugs,  in  three  weeks.  This  magical  wet-sheet  itself,  what  a 
discovery  !  Is  it  not  a  stupendous  novelty  to  regard  fevers  as,  in 
all  cases,  but  the  manifestation  of  the  struggle  going  on  within 
between  the  vital  principle  and  a  disease  which  threatens  it? 
And  is  it  not  a  new  feeling,  in  the  summoned  healer,  to  approach 
the  fever-heated  patient  with  clearest  confidence,  looking  on  the 
fever  as  a  sign  of  vital  activity,  which  with  a  single  agent  he  can 
uphold  and  helpfully  direct  to  a  rapid  and  safe  issue  ?  instead  of 
going  to  work  against  the  vital  principle  with  his  drugs, — which 
draw  it  off  from  its  struggle  with  the  disease  to  fight  themselves, — 
and  with  his  life-tapping  lancet,  inwardly  trembling, — if  he  be 
clear-headed  and  conscientious, — for  the  slow  result,  doubting  of 

4 


50  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

his  whole  procedure,  coming  back  daily  for  weeks  with  the  tre- 
pidation of  one  who  is  tussling  in  the  dark  with  Death  for  a  human 
being,  and  often  overwhelmed  at  the  sudden  victory  of  his  foe, 
by  the  conviction,  that  himself  has  opened  to  him  the  path.  I 
refer  now  to  the  best  of  the  medical  guild,  the  few  men  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  integrity.  Such  will  feel,  how  sadly  true  is  the  self- 
reproach  of  Faust,  who,  on  being  hailed  with  honor  and  thanks 
by  the  peasants  for  having,  a  young  assistant  to  his  medical 
father^  saved  so  many  of  them  from  the  plague,  exclaims  that 
their  praise  sounds  like  scorn,  and  relates  to  his  companion  the 
blind,  desperate  nature  of  -  their  treatment,  concluding  as 

follows : — 

And  thus  with  most  infernal  pills, 
Among  these  valleys  and  these  hills, 

Far  worse  than  did  the  Pest  we  blazed. 
Thousands  did  I  the  poison  give ; 
They  withered  off,  and  I  must  live 

To  hear  th'  audacious  murderers  praised.* 

The  common  crowd  of  legalized  botchers  walk  through  their 
daily  mischievous  routine,  partly  in  ignorant  thoughtlessness, 
partly  in  insensibility. 

"  The  whole  baseless  calamitous  system  of  drug-poisoning," 
says  a  German  expounder  of  Priesnitz's  practice,  "  which  has 
already  snatched  away  many  millions,  had  its  origin  in  the  mis- 
conception  of  primary  or  acute  diseases.  Because  people  did  not 
perceive  that  these  abnormal  feverish  conditions  are  only  efforts 
at  healing  which  the  organism  makes,  they  mistook  these  fever- 
symptoms  for  the  disease  itself,  and  finding  that  they  could  be 

*  So  haben  wir  mit  hollischen  Latwergen 
In  diesen  Thalern,  diesen  Bergen, 
Weit  schlimmer  als  die  Pest  getobt. 
Ich  habe  selbst  den  Gift  an  tausende  gegeben ; 
Sie  welkten  hin,  ich  muss  erleben, 
Dass  man  die  frechen  Morder  lobt, 


THE  WATER-CURE.  51 


allayed  by  blood-letting  and  drugging,  they  prized  this  fatal  dis- 
covery. Then  sprang  up  from  this  poisonous  seeding  a  whole 
host  of  terrible  deadly  maladies.  But  because  the  afflictions  did 
not  show  themselves  immediately,  within  a  few  weeks  after  the 
medicinal  suppression  of  the  acute  disease,  no  one  had  a  thought 
that  the  drugs  and  bleeding  were  the  cause  of  them."  The  same 
author  thus  writes  of  inflammation  in  case  of  wounds  ! — "  In  order 
to  heal  a  wound,  the  organism  must  form  on  the  part  where  the 
wound  is,  new  flesh,  new  vessels  for  the  new  capillaries,  &c.  To 
be  able  to  form  this  flesh,  it  is  necessary  that  the  material  for  it, — 
the  forming  sap,  which  is  the  blood, — be  led  to  the  part  in  abnor- 
mal quantity.  Thus,  too,  plants  heal  an  injury  by  sending  to  the 
injured  spot  sap  in  unusual  abundance.  Through  this  abnormal 
blood-life,  increased  warmth  is  produced  in  the  part  to  be  healed, 
which  warmth,  however,  only  then  gets  to  real  inflammation  when 
the  instinct  of  the  wounded  person  for  cold  water  inwardly  and 
outwardly  is  not  satisfied.  Allopathy,  in  its  stolidity,  looks  upon 
this  streaming  of  the  blood  to  the  wounded  part,  and  the  exalta- 
tion of  life  therein  to  the  point  of  heat,  as  disease,  as  something 
which  must  be  removed,  and  lets  blood.  Hereupon,  notwithstand- 
ing, the  organism  continues  to  send  blood  to  the  injured  part, 
where  it  is  needed,  and  the  Doctor  continues  to  let  blood,  some- 
times until  the  extremities  become  bloodless  and  cold,  and  the 
patient  often  dies  of  weakness, — as  is  also  the  case  with  internal, 
so  called,  inflammations." 

These  views  of  fever  and  inflammation  have  been  deduced 
from  the  facts  observed  and  brought  to  light  by  Priesnitz.  If  any 
like  them  were  ever  before  entertained,  it  was  but  in  a  partial, 
feeble  way.  They  have  never  formed  part  of  the  medical  creed ; 
they  have  not  been  made  the  foundation  of  a  school.  As  great  as 
between  the  momentary  illumination  of  lightning  and  the  light  of 
the  day-long  sun,  is  the  difference  between  having  a  thought  pass 
through  the  mind,  and  having  it  planted  there  till  it  grow  to  a 


52  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

fruitful  conviction.  Hereby  is  the  Healing  Art  become,  for  the 
first  time,  what  all  Art  ought  to  be,  the  handmaid  of  Nature,  and 
thus,  at  last,  what  it  never  before  was,  a  genuine  healing  art,  and 
a  blessing  to  humanity. 

This  broad,  absolute  condemnation  of  the  drug  and  lancet  prac- 
tice, is  at  any  rate  not  new.  Hear  some  of  the  most  famous 
physicians  speak  of  their  Art. 

Van  Helmont  says : — "  A  murder-loving  devil  has  taken  pos- 
session of  the  medical  chairs ;  for  none  but  a  devil  could  recom- 
mend to  physicians  blood-letting  as  a  necessary  means." 

Boerhave  : — "  When  one  compares  the  good  performed  on  the 
earth  by  half  a  dozen  true  sons  of  ^Esculapius  since  the  rise  of 
the  Art,  with  the  evil  done  among  men  by  the  countless  number 
of  Doctors  of  this  trade,  one  will  doubtless  think,  that  it  were 
much  better  if  there  never  had  been  a  physician  in  the  world." 
.  Reil : — "  It  is  perfectly  clear  that  we  do  not  know  the  nature 
of  fever,  and  that  the  treatment  thereof  is  nothing  more  than 
naked  empiricism. — The  variety  of  opinions  is  a  proof  that  the 
nature  of  the  subject  is  not  yet  clear ;  for  when  the  truth  is  once 
found,  certainty  takes  the  place  of  hypothesis  in  every  sound 
mind." 

Rush: — "We  have  not  only  multiplied  diseases,  but  have 
made  them  more  fatal." 

Majendie  : — "  In  the  actual  condition  of  medical  science,  the 
physician  mostly  plays  but  the  part  of  simple  spectator  of  the  sad 
episodes  which  his  profession  furnishes  him." 

Billing  : — "  I  visited  the  different  schools,  and  the  students  of 
each  hinted,  if  they  did  not  assert,  that  the  other  sects  killed  their 
patients." 

Water  too  can  kill,  or  it  could  not  cure.     Yet  may  it  fearlessly 
be  affirmed,  that  where  one  will  be  hurt  or  killed  by  the  water 
treatment,  one  hundred  will  be  by  drugs.     Relatively,  the  water- 
cure  is  without  danger  ;  nay,  it  is  so  absolutely.     Knowledge  is 


: 


THE  WATER- 


needed  to  do  anything,  even  to  grow 
break  his  neck  falling  down  steps  safely 
But  conceive  knowledge  with  poisons  for  its  instrument,  and  the 
same  knowledge  with  one  pure  agent,  and  able  with  that  one  to 
bring  out  any  and  all  the  effects  aimed  at  by  the  lancet  and  whole 
pharmacopoeia.  In  the  skilfullest  hands,  arsenic,  prussic  acid, 
copperas,  oil  of  vitriol,  mercury,  iodine,  strychnine,  all  medical 
poisons  in  constant  use,  suddenly  cause  death  at  times,  to  the  con- 
founding of  the  practitioner.  Their  remote  effects  in  shortening 
and  embittering  life,  are  incalculable,  unimaginable.  In  short, 
the  water-cure,  at  once  simple  and  philosophical,  is  dangerous  only 
where  there  is  clumsiness,  rashness,  or  stupidity  :  drugs,  virulent 
and  treacherous,  are  full  of  immediate  danger  in  the  most  pru- 
dent and  sagacious  hands,  and  are  besides  charged  with  evils  dis- 
tant and  insidious. 

By  means  of  water,  then,  whose  energizing  and  healing  power 
has  been  to  the  full  revealed  by  Priesnitz,  chronic  diseases,  till 
now  deemed  hopeless,  are  eradicable,  and  acute  ones  cease  to  be 
alarming.  By  the  thorough  cure  of  acute  attacks,  chronic  com- 
plaints,— mostly  the  consequence  of  suppressed  or  half-cured  acute 
ones, — will  be  much  fewer.  Through  the  same  influence,  acute 
will  become  less  frequent.  Were  this  discovery  to  cause  no  othef 
change  of  habits,  the  substitution  of  cold  for  warm  baths  and  the 
general  practice  of  cold  bathing,  will  alone  produce  such  bodily 
fortification  as  to  ward  off  an  immense  amount  of  disease.  But 
the  change  cannot  stop  there.  Wedded  as  men  are  to  routine, 
hugging  custom  as  if  life  itself  were  intertwined  with  its  plaits, 
still  they  do  by  degrees  let  in  the  light  of  new  truths.  When  one 
of  her  great  laws  is  discovered,  Nature  smiles  joyfully  and  benig- 
nantly,  as  a  mother  on  the  unfolding  of  her  infant's  mind,  and  in 
man's  heart  is  reflected  the  smile,  the  harbinger  of  new  blessings. 
This  discovery  is  already  hailed  by  tens  of  thousands  as  pregnant 
with  immeasurable  good.  It  is  so  simple,  so  intelligible,  so  ac 


54  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

cessible,  that  it  must  spread  its  blessings  in  spite  of  prejudice, 
interest,  and  ignorance. 

Health  is  nearly  banished  from  Christendom.  Even  among 
those  who  lead  an  outdoor  life  of  healthful  labor,  there  is  the  de- 
bilitating counteraction  of  stimulants,  in  drink,  in  food,  in  tobacco. 
The  wealthier  classes  are  more  the  victims  of  drugs,  the  poor  of 
alcohol.  These  two  curses,  poisoning  the  sources  of  life,  have 
diminished  the  stature  and  strength  of  the  race,  far  more  even  than 
vice  and  poverty,  of  which  too  alcohol  is  a  prolific  parent.  That 
there  is  this  diminution  is  proved,  among  other  evidence,  by  the 
falling  off  in  the  standard  of  stature  for  soldiers  in  the  principal 
countries  of  Europe,  in  England,  in  France,  in  Germany. 
Through  these  poisons,  the  natural  instincts  of  appetite  have  been 
depraved.  There  is  a  general  vitiation  of  the  palate  through  the 
perverted  nerves,  brought  about  by  the  universal  use  of  all  kinds 
of  foreign  stimulants,  medicinal,  spirituous,  and  spicy.  Water  is 
deemed  good  to  mix  with  spirits  and  wine,  and  milk  with  tea  and 
coffee.  Pure,  they  are  insipid,  and  so  deep  has  reached  the  cor- 
ruption, that  it  is  quite  a  common  belief,  that  water  is  unwhole- 
some !  There  is  a  general  craving  for  stimulants.  They  are 
esteemed  temperate  who  use  them  only  at  meals !  Their  hurtful 
effects  upon  the  health,  temper,  strength  and  morals,  cannot  be 
estimated.  Against  all  this,  Nature  protests  by  the  sighs  of 
weakness,  the  groans  of  disease,  the  pangs  of  conscience,  and  the 
agonies  of  premature  death.  Priesnitz  would  seem  to  be  commis- 
sioned to  re-utter  the  commands  of  Nature,  to  rouse  mankind  to 
a  sense  of  its  growing  physical  degeneracy,  and  to  open  the  path 
towards  health,  refreshed  life  and  enjoyment.  Priesnitz  has  de- 
monstrated, that  for  the  preservation  of  health  and  restoration  from 
disease  there  is  an  efficacy,  a  virtue  in  WATER,  hitherto  undreamt 
of;  that  all  kinds  of  stimulants,  under  all  circumstances  whether 
in,  disease  or  in  health,  are  always  falsehoods,  disguised  like  worse 
moral  lies  under  cajoling  flatteries  ;  and  this  he  enforces  with  the 


FRANKFORT.  55 


eloquence  of  cheerfullest,  sweetest  sensations,  renovating,  I  might 
almost  say,  re-creating,  the  nervous  system,  and  thus  putting 
literally  new  life  into  the  body. 

GENEVA,  September,  1841. 

The  last  of  July,  after  a  six  weeks'  experiment  of  the  water- 
cure,  we  left  Boppart.  These  few  weeks  have  made,  I  may  say, 
an  epoch  in  my  life.  It  is  not  the  bodily  strength  I  gained, — and 
the  time  was  much  too  short  for  a  full  restoration  to  health, — but 
the  gain  of  new  truths  and  convictions,  which  give  me  in  a  de- 
gree command  over  my  bodily  condition  ;  the  gain  of  insight  and 
knowledge,  whereby  1  can  ward  off  attacks  against  which  I,  like 
others,  before  felt  myself  powerless.  I  have  learnt  to  know  the 
effects  of  stimulants,  and  am  emancipated  from  their  tyranny. 
As  on  the  morning  of  our  departure  from  Marienberg,  we  drove 
along  the  beautiful  shores  of  the  Rhine,  I  felt,  that  new  and  bene- 
ficent laws  had  been  divulged  to  me,  and  that  I  was  closer  under 
the  protection  of  Nature. 

At  Bingen,  after  exploring  the  Niederwald  on  donkeys,  and 
visiting  the  Rheinstein, — a  turretted  old  castle  perched  among 
rocks  and  woods  high  above  the  river,  fitted  up  and  inhabited  by 
a  Prince  of  Prussia, — we  quitted  the  Rhine  to  take  the  road  to 
Wiesbaden,  where,  as  at  other  fashionable  watering-places,  Idle- 
ness holds  an  annual  festival ;  for  the  proportion  is  small  of  those 
who  are  here  solely  for  the  business  of  cure.  Thence  a  short 
railroad  carried  us  to  Frankfort,  famous  for  its  biennial  fairs, 
where  merchants  thickly  congregate  ;  for  the  election  and  coro- 
nation in  past  centuries  of  the  Emperors  of  Germany  ;  and  most 
famous  of  all  as  the  birth-place  of  Goethe,  who  as  boy,  among  the 
other  sights  and  sounds  that  were  teaching  his  young  mind  its 
powers,  witnessed  with  greedy  delight  one  of  the  imperial  corona- 
tions, himself  already  appointed  to  a  throne  and  a  sway,  firmer 
and  wider  than  that  of  Emperors.  Here  were  laid  the  founda- 


50  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

tions  of  a  nature,  the  richest  the  earth  has  borne  since  Shak- 
speare. 

Sir  Egerton  Brydges,  that  genial  old  man,  says  : — "  A  large 
part  of  the  existence  of  a  human  being  consists  in  thought  and 
sentiment."  Most  true.  Like  air  through  the  lungs,  thought 
and  emotion  are  curling  unceasingly  round  the  brain  ;  they  are 
the  atmosphere  of  the  soul,  as  impalpable,  yet  as  real  and  vital, 
as  that  we  breathe.  Without  this  lively  presence  of  filing  and 
thought,  we  cannot  be  as  soul-endowed  beings  ;  it  is  the  state  of 
mental  life.  Our  friends,  our  neighbors,  our  children,  are  far 
off  from  us,  in  comparison  with  this  sleepless  inward  offspring  of 
the  mind.  Is  it  well-limbed,  healthy,  clean,  we  live  the  erect, 
loving,  steadfast  life  of  a  genuine  man  ;  is  it  deformed,  crabbed  j 
our  life  is  narrow,  suspicious,  timid.  What  a  task,  then,  how 
high,  how  deep,  to  feed,  to  purify,  to  enlarge,  to  enrich  this  spring 
of  every  human  movement,  endeavor,  puipose,  deed.  Such  is 
the  Poet's  function,  the  noblest,  the  most  useful.  Through  his 
sensibility  to  the  beautiful,  he  sees  furthest  into  the  nature  of 
things,  goes  down  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  discerns  in  each  class 
of  being  the  original  type,  wherein  Beauty  has  its  perfect  dwelling. 
Embodying  the  visions  thus  had,  in  moulds  which  each  creates 
for  itselfj  he  brings  before  his  fellow-men  mirrors,  wherein  they 
behold  themselves,  their  thoughts  and  feelings,  subtilized,  exalted 
— magic  mirrors,  whose  images,  glowing  with  almost  supernatu- 
ral effulgence,  are  yet  felt  to  be  true.  For  poetry  is  a  distillation 
of  Beauty  out  of  the  feelings  and  doings  of  daily  life,  and  a  poem 
is  but  the  finest,  maturest  fruit  of  impulses,  which  exist  in,  and 
openly  or  secretly  control,  the  most  prosaic  worker  in  a  trading 
community.  Who  so  base  or  dull,  but  has  had  moments  of  spi- 
ritual abstraction,  when  his  whole  being  was  penetrated  with  un- 
earthly light,  whereby  all  things,  as  it  were  transfigured,  looked 
calm  and  joyful  ?  Breathes  there  a  man,  not  blasted  with  idiocy 
in  whom  at  times  a  gorgeous  sunset  would  not  awaken  emotion, 


GOETHE.  57 


whose  heart  would  not  open  to  the  mystic  beauty  of  the  midnight 
sky,  who  has  not  felt,  though  but  for  an  instant,  a  quickening 
impulse  towards  perfection  ?  Such  moods  the  poet  fosters,  awa- 
kens, confirms.  He  teaches  the  mind  to  use  its  wings  :  he  peoples 
it  with  richer  possibilities.  The  Poet  is  the  highest  of  educators. 
With  the  gushings  of  the  young  untainted  heart,  mingle  his  warm 
expansive  thoughts,  and  as  years  ripen,  we  embrace  more  closely 
the  truths  he  has  melodiously  unfolded,  unconscious  often  whence 
they  have  come. 

The  fortune  of  worldly  position  and  of  length  of  years,  favored 
the  pre-eminent  genius  of  Goethe,  in  performing  the  great  task 
of  the  poet  in  a  way  unparalleled  in  these  latter  times.  No 
man  of  the  age  has  so  widened  the  intellectual  horizon  of  his 
country,  so  deepened  and  freshened  the  common  sea  of  thought, 
so  enriched  the  minds  of  his  contemporaries  with  images  of  beauty 
and  power.  Among  the  heartless,  senseless  complaints  against 
Goethe, — as  such  will  be  made  against  the  greatest, — that  of  his 
want  of  patriotism  is  the  most  vapid.  Let  the  man  be  pointed  to 
who  has  done  so  much  to  enlighten,  to  elevate  Germany.  He 
has  thus  contributed  more  towards  the  liberty  of  his  country  than 
any  score  of  "  Liberals,"  even  though  they  be  genuine  ones. 
There  is  a  fitness  in  his  being  born  at  Frankfort,  at  once  the 
capital  of  Germany  and  a  free  town.  Saving  Luther,  there  is 
none  other  who  better  deserves  the  title  of  Father  of  his  country. 

His  fellow  citizens  are  about  to  raise  to  him  a  colossal  statue  in 
Frankfort.  In  the  neighboring  town  of  Mayence,  a  noble  one, 
designed  by  Thorwaldsen,  has  been  lately  erected  to  Gutemberg. 
Goethe  and  Gutemberg  will  be  side  by  side.  They  belong 
together;  the  one,  the  German  who  invented  types,  the  other, 
the  German  who  has  made  the  best  use  of  them. 

A  day  sufficed  for  Frankfort.  The  most  beautiful  thing  they 
have  to  show,  is  Dannecker's  statue  of  Ariadne.  For  our  route 
towards  Switzerland  we  chose  what,  is  called  the  mountain  road, 

4* 


58  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

which  traverses  one  of  the  most  fertile  plains  of  Europe,  bounded 
on  the  East  by  a  range  of  hills,  sloping  up  into  soft  valleys  and 
wooded  heights,  with  here  and  there  a  ruined  castle  to  connect 
the  fresh-looking  landscape  with  the  olden  time.  Our  first  night 
was  at  Weinheim,  an  ancient  town  begirt  with  towers,  and  snugly 
seated,  amidst  orchards  and  vineyards,  at  the  foot  of  the  hills. 
Early  before  breakfast,  I  walked  up  to  the  old  castle  of  Windeck. 
I  met  people  going  out  to  work;  they  looked  mostly  hunger, 
pinched  and  toil-bent.  To  how  many  is  the  earth  a  cold  prison, 
instead  of  the  fair  warm  garden  -Nature  offers  it.  To  none,  even 
the  most  favored,  is  life  what  it  might  be.  When  will  men's 
aims  be  truer,  and  their  means  juster,  and  existence  cease  to  be 
a  harrying  scramble  1  The  earth  is  yet  shadowed  by  the  scowl 
of  man  upon  his  fellow.  Nature  is  most  rich  and  bountiful, 
would  we  but  live  after  her  law.  The  resources  are  within  and 
about  us ;  and  a  Christian  must  believe  that  they  will  be  awakened 
and  improved,  till  man  at  last  smiles  upon  man. 

A  night  rain  had  sweetened  the  air  and  land  for  our  morning 
drive  to  Heidelberg,  which  was  the  next  stage.  We  spent  an 
hour  among  the  broad  ruins  of  the  famed  castle,  saw  the  streets 
lively  with  students,  joyous  intelligent  looking  youths,  sought  out 
two  or  three  young  Americans  at  their  lodgings,  and  then  went 
again  rolling  smoothly  on  our  journey,  to  end  the  day  at  Carlsruhe 
(Charles'  rest),  the  capital  of  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Baden.  The 
next  day  we  dined  at  Baden — Baden,  the  celebrated  watering- 
place,  lying  beautifully  in  a  stream-enlivened  valley,  between 
gentle  hills,  overrun  for  miles  with  shady  walks  and  drives. 

The  Cursaal,  containing  the  spacious  public  saloons  and  ball- 
rooms,  and  furnished  like  a  palace,  is  the  general  resort  in  the 
evening.  Here  are  the  gambling-tables,  three  or  four  of  them, 
all  plying  at  the  same  time  their  silent  gloomy  trade.  Round 
each  large  oval  table,  with  its  wheel  of  destiny  in  the  centre,  and 
its  fine  green  cloth  covered  with  figures  and  mystic  divisions,  \\  as 


GAMBLING-TABLES.  59 


a  crowd  of  spectators  and  players,  standing  or  seated.  To  par- 
take  of  the  scene  actively  and  from  its  midst,  I  joined  one  of  them, 
throwing  down  occasionally  among  the  twinkling  gold  pieces  and 
fat  piastres  a  pale  florin,  the  lowest  stake  allowed.  The  players 
were  of  various  conditions  and  ages  and  aspects  ;  a  few  of  them 
mere  players,  to  whom  it  was  an  arithmetical  trial,  a  sportful 
excitement,  like  one  young  Englishman  who  gaily  scattered  a 
handful  of  Napoleons  at  a  throw,  choosing,  as  though  he  could 
choose,  the  numbers  to  stake  on,  dallying  carelessly  with  Fortune. 
But  out  of  the  fixed  serious  countenances  of  most,  stared  the 
Demon  of  gain.  He  must  have  laughed  one  of  his  bitterest 
laughs  at  his  dupes.  The  scene  would  have  adorned  Spenser's 
cave  of  Mammon,  In  the  glare  of  a  large  overhanging  light,  a 
circle  of  human  beings  intent  upon  gold,  and  all  the  features  of 
Avarice  concentrated  in  haggard  unity  on  one  little  spot.  A 
circle,  but  without  bond  of  union ;  each  pursuing  his  end  in  sel- 
fish isolation,  unmindful  of  his  neighbor,  except  when  Envy 
stirred  at  his  good  fortune ;  absorbed,  possessed  by  the  one  feel- 
ing ;  his  whole  nature  quenched  under  its  cold  tyranny ;  his 
visage  half  petrified  by  the  banishment  of  all  other  thought. — It 
had  too  its  poetic  side  ;  the  hope  ever  renewed  ;  the  mysterious 
source  of  the  decree,  coming  out  of  unfathomable  depths;  its 
absoluteness,  representing  perfectly  the  inexorableness  of  Fate. 

Before  entering  on  our  route  through  the  Black  Forest  to 
Schaffhausen  in  Switzerland,  we  made  a  circuit  of  half  a  day  by 
Strasburg,  to  see  the  Cathedral,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of 
Gothic  churches,  the  pinnacle  of  whose  spire  is  the  highest  point 
ever  reached  in  an  edifice  of  human  hands,  being  twenty- 
four  feet  higher  than  the  great  Pyramid  of  Egypt.  These  airy 
Gothic  structures,  rising  lightly  from  the  earth,  as  if  they  were  a 
growth  out  of  it,  look,  amidst  the  common  houses  about  them,  like 
products  of  another  race.  They  have  an  air  of  inspiration. 
Their  moulds  were  thbughts  made  musical  by  deep  feeling. 


60  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

They  are  the  Poems  of  an  age  when  Religion  yearned  for 
glorious  embodiment.  They  declare  the  beauty  and  grandeur 
of  the  human  mind,  that  it  could  conceive  and  give  birth  to  a  thing 
so  majestic.  Those  high-springing  vaults;  those  far-stretching 
aisles,  solemnized  by  hues  from  deeply  colored  windows ;  those 
magnificent  vistas,  under  roof;  those  outward  walls,  so  gigantic,  and 
yet  so  light  with  flying  buttresses  and  the  relief  of  delicate  tracery  ; 
that  feathery  spire,  which  carries  the  eyes  far  away  from  the  earth ; 
to  think,  that  the  whole  wondrous  fabric,  so  huge  and  graceful,  so 
solid  and  airy,  so  complex  and  harmonious,  as  it  stands  the~c  before 
you,  stood  first,  in  its  large  beautiful  completeness,  in  tie  brain 
of  its  architect,  Erwin  von  Steinbach.  Those  great  builders  of 
the  middle  ages  have  not  been  duly  known ;  their  names  are  not 
familiar,  as  they  should  be,  like  those  of  the  great  painters. 

Strasburg,  and  Alsace,  of  which  it  was  formerly  the  capital, 
though  long  in  the  possession  of  France,  are  German  still  in  Ian- 
guage  and  customs.  The  original  character  of  a  people  clings  to 
it  through  all  kinds  of  outward  vicissitudes.  This  is  strongly 
exemplified  in  the  French  themselves.  The  exact  similarity 
between  certain  prominent  features  in  the  ancient  Gauls  and 
the  modern  French,  shows  with  what  fidelity  mental  qualities 
are  transmitted  through  advancing  stages  of  civilisation,  and 
what  permanent  unfailing  effects,  soil,  atmosphere  and  climate 
exert  upon  the  character  of  a  people.  The  Gauls  were  as  noted 
for  the  fury  of  their  first  onset  in  their  battles  with  Csesar,  as  the 
French  were  at  Agincourt  and  in  the  Spanish  Peninsula,  and 
seem  to  have  been  discomfited  by  the  steadfastness  of  the  Romans 
precisely  in  the  way  their  descendants  were  by  the  cooler  cou- 
rage of  the  British.  Winkelman,  endeavoring  to  show  the  effects 
of  air  and  nourishment  on  national  character,  states,  that  accord- 
ing to  the  Emperor  Julian  there  were  in  his  day  more  dancers  in 
Paris  than  citizens,  and  I  have  somewhere  seen  this  quotation 
from  Cato ; — Duas  res  Gens  Gallica  intfustriosissime  persequtiur, 


ZURICH,  GOLDAU.  61 


rem  militarem  el  argute  loqui : — Two  things  the  Gallic  people  cul- 
tivate most  diligently,  military  aflkirs  and  glibness  of  speech. 

In  a  day  and  a  half  we  reached  Schaffhausen  by  Horn  berg  and 
Donauschingen.  At  Schaffhausen  we  had  to  resign  the  comfort  of 
post-horses.  The  inn-keepers  of  Switzerland,  a  numerous  and 
wealthy  class,  have  influence  enough,  it  is  said,  to  prevent  the 
introduction  of  the  posting-system,  it  being  of  course  their  interest 
to  have  travellers  move  slowly.  On  the  way  to  Zurich,  we  stopped 
an  hour  a  few  miles  below  Schaffhausen,  to  see  the  Falls  of  the 
Rhine,  the  finest  in  Europe,  and  well  deserving  their  fame.  In 
the  afternoon  we  had  the  first  view  of  the  snow-capt  mountains. 
Far  before  us,  fifty  or  sixty  miles  off,  they  lay  along  the  horizon 
like  a  bank  of  silver.  We  approached  Zurich,  descending  among 
gardens,  and  vineyards,  and  villas,  with  the  lake  and  town  in  view. 
The  evening  hour  of  arrival  is  always  a  cheerful  one  to  the 
traveller,  and  it  is  trebly  so,  when  the  smiling  welcome  of  "  mine 
host "  is  preceded  by  such  a  greeting  as  this  from  Nature.  We 
had  time  before  dark  to  enjoy  the  wide  prospect  from  the  top  of 
the  Hotel.  The  sublimities  of  Switzerland  were  still  remote,  but 
we  were  already  encompassed  by  its  beauties. 

The  next  morning  we  started  early,  intending  to  sleep  that 
night  on  the  top  of  the  Righi.  Crossing  before  breakfast  Mount 
Albis,  from  whose  southern  side  the  mountains  about  the  Lake  of 
the  four  Cantons  came  grandly  into  view,  we  descended  upon 
Zug,  passing  through  which  and  along  the  northern  shore  of  its 
lake,  we  reached  Arth  at  one  ;  whence,  at  half-past  two,  we  com- 
menced the  journey  up  the  Righi  on  horseback  with  a  guide.  The 
ascent  begins  a  mile  east  of  Goldau,  one  of  the  villages  destroyed 
by  the  fall  of  the  Rossberg  in  1806.  Conceive  of  a  slip  of  rock 
and  earth  two  miles  long,  one-fifth  of  a  mile  wide,  and  one  hun- 
dred feet  thick,  loosened  from  the  summit  of  a  mountain  five 
thousand  feet  high,  rushing  down  its  side  into  the  valley  below. 
It  overwhelmed  three  villages  with  five  hundred  of  their  inhabit- 


62  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE 

ants,  and  spread  desolation  over  several  miles  of  the  valley.  We 
passed  through  the  terrific  scene,  a  chaos  of  rock  and  rubbish, 
where  Goldau  had  been.  Huge  blocks  of  stone,  as  large  some  of 
them  as  a  small  house,  were  forced  up  the  Righi  far  above  the 
site  of  Goldau.  There  are  traditions  of  similar  slides  from  this 
same  mountain  in  past  ages,  and  still  higher  up  were  scattered 
other  blocks  which  the  guide  said  had  come  on  one  of  those  oc- 
casions from  the  Rossberg,  three  or  four  miles  distant.  We  were 
more  than  three  hours  ascending,  and  went  up  into  a  cloud,  which 
enveloped  the  top  of  the  mountain,  so  that  we  had  no  sunset.  The 
cioud  passed  away  in  the  night. 

The  next  morning  before  dawn,  with  cloaks  about  us,  we  were 
out.  From  the  top  of  this  isolated  peak;  a  mile  above  the  lakes 
at  its  base,  we  saw  light  break  slowly  over  the  earth,  as  yet  with- 
out form  in  the  darkness.  We  had  almost  a  glimpse  of  the  creative 
mystery.  We  were  up  in  the  heavens,  and  beheld  the  Spirit  of 
God  move  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  We  witnessed  with  mag- 
nificent accompaniment  the  execution  of  the  mandate, — -Let  there 
be  Light.  The  peaks  in  the  sun's  path  rose  first  out  of  darkness 
to  meet  the  coming  dawn,  their  jagged  outline  fringed  with  grey, 
then  with  gold.  Day, had  hardly  broke  about  us,  when  off  to  the 
south  fifty  miles  a  rosy  tint  shone  on  the  snowy  heads  of  the 
Bernese  Alps,  the  first  to  answer  the  salutation  of  the  Sun.  Soon, 
the  summits  of  all  the  mountains  rose  up  in  the  growing  day,  a 
world  of  peaks,  the  giant  olispring  of  the  Earth  awakened  by  the 
Morning.  Below  was  still  twilight.  Gradually  light  came  down 
the  mountains  and  rolled  away  the  veil  of  night  from  the  plain. 
The  Sun  grew  strong  enough  to  send  his  rays  into  the  valleys, 
and  opened  the  whole  sublime  spectacle, — a  spectacle  affluent  in 
sublimities,  that  lifted  the  Thoughts  out  of  their  habits,  and  swelled 
them  to  untried  dimensions.  The  eye  embraced  an  horizon  of 
three  hundred  miles  circuit ;  the  Mind  could  not  embrace  ^the 
wealth  of  grandeur  and  beauty  disclosed.  Towards  the  west, 


THE  RIGHT.  63 


the  view  ranged  over  what  from  such  a  height  seemed  an  immense 
plain,  bounded  by  the  far  dim  Jura  ;  an  indistinct  landscape,  with 
woods,  and  rivers,  and  lakes ;  or,  rather,  a  hundred  landscapes 
melted  into  one,  that  took  in  several  of  the  largest,  most  fertile 
cantons,  covering  thousands  of  square  miles.  Turning  round,  we 
stood  amazed  before  the  stupendous  piles  of  mountain.  From 
five  to  fifty  miles  away,  in  a  vast  semicircle,  rose  in  wondrous 
throng  their  wild  bulks — rugged  granite  or  glittering  snow,  tower, 
ing  in  silent  grandeur,  an  upper  kingdom,  their  heads  in  the  sky. 
They  looked  alive  as  with  a  spectral  life,  brought  from  the 
mysterious  womb  of  the  Earth.  You  gaze,  awed,  baffled,  in 
their  majestic  presence,  overwhelmed  by  the  very  sublimity  of 
size. 

We  had  come  up  by  the  north  path,  we  went  down  by  the  south. 
What  a  walk  on  a  sunny  morning  !  Down  we  went,  nearer  and 
nearer  to  the  beautiful  lake  right  under  us,  plunging  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  magical  scenery  of  its  shores.  We  reached  Weggis 
in  two  hours  and  a  half.  The  perpendicular  height  from  the  level 
of  the  lake  to  the  pinnacle  of  the  Righi  is  about  a  mile  ;  in  the 
descent  I  must  have  walked  seven  or  eight.  By  steamboat  we 
reached  Lucerne  at  one.  From  Lucerne  we  looked  back  down 
the  lake  at  the  throng  of  mountains  that  rose  out  of  its  waters  and 
crowded  the  eastern  horizon.  A  slight  haze  made  the  sun  shine 
on  them  more  warmly.  The  scene  was  like  a  vision,  so  strange 
was  it  and  beautiful. 

The  same  afternoon  we  left  Lucerne  and  slept  at  Entlebuch, 
whence  the  next  day  we  came  to  Berne,  traversing  the  broad 
cantons  of  Lucerne  and  Berne,  through  a  country  abundant  in 
crops  and  landscapes.  Our  attempt  to  see  some  of  the  splendors 
of  the  Bernese  Oberland  was  frustrated  by  the  weather  ;  so  that, 
after  going  from  Thun  to  Brienz,  through  their  two  lakes,  we 
turned  back  in  the  rain,  having  merely  got  a  momentary  glimpse 
a1  Interlaachen  of  the  Yungfrau.  We  made  a  long  day  from 


64  SCENES   AND   THOUGHTS   IN   EUROPE. 

Berne  to  Lausanne,  passing  through  Freyburg,  the  stronghold  of 
Romanism  in  Switzerland,  remarkable  for  the  singularity  and 
picturesqueness  of  its  position,  high  up  in  one  of  the  bends  of  the 
river  Saane  ;  for  its  suspension  bridge — the  longest  in  the  world — 
one  hundred  and  seventy  feet  above  the  river  which  it  spans ;  for 
its  Convents  and  Jesuits'  College,  and  for  the  dirtiness  of  its 
streets.  A  transparent  morning  for  the  drive  from  Lausanne 
along  the  shore  of  Lake  Leman  to  Geneva,  gave  us  a  clear  view 
.of  Mont  Blanc,  more  than  sixty  miles  off.  We  reached  Geneva 
on  the  17th  of  August. 

Calvin,  Rousseau.  An  old  town  that  hasn't  its  great  men  is 
tasteless  to  the  traveller.  These  two  give  the  flavor  to  Geneva. 
Of  necessity  far  apart  in  time,  for  one  would  think  tin*,  spirit  of 
Calvin  must  have  been  well-nigh  worn-out  or  dormant  ere  tne  little 
Republic  could  have  engendered  a  Rousseau.  I  figure  Calvin  as 
gaunt,  fleshless ;  a  man  of  a  gritty  substance,  on  whom  flesh  couldn't 
grow.  A  nature  tough  as  steel,  unbending  as  granite — as  was 
needed  for  his  task.  With  what  a  bold  biting  lash  he  scourged 
the  sensualities  of  his  time  !  How  he  defied  the  principalities 
of  the  earth !  How  he  scorned  the  tempests  of  papal,  and  regal, 
and  popular,  wrath  !  They  did  but  invigorate  his  will,  sublimate 
his  genius,  for  the  building  up  of  a  power  that  was  to  stretch  over 
many  nations  and  endure  for  ages.  He  would  not  have  been  Cal- 
vin had  he  not  burned  Servetus.  This  crime  was  the  correlative 
©f  his  virtue.  It  condensed  with  the  heartiness  and  earnestness, 
the  austerity  and  narrowness  of  Calvinism.  His  followers  con- 
tinued and  continue  to  burn  Servetuses  after  a  different  fashion. 
Honor  to  the  patriarch  of  the  Puritans. 

Calvin,  who  was  not  born  in  Geneva,  became  there  a  ruler ; 
Rousseau,  who  was,  doesn't  seem  to  have  been  held  of  much  ac- 
count by  his  townsmen,  until  lately,  when  they  have  erected  to 
him  a  statue,  more  out  of  pride  probably  than  love.  Rousseau 
was  made  of  anything  but  granite  \  an  unstable  tremulous  nature, 


VALLEY  OF  THE  RHONE.  65 


devoured  by  passions  which  yet  hadn't  life  enough  to  energize  him. 
His  life-long  sorrows  were  of  the  Werterian  kind,  but  he  had'nt 
the  strength  to  shoot  himself.  He  was  a  Werter  manque.  Yet 
he  too  did  a  large  share  of  good.  In  a  time  of  coldness  and  mis- 
belief, he  helped  to  bring  men  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truths  and 
beauties  of  Nature,  and  of  the  resources  of  their  hearts,  through 
which  knowledge  alone  can  there  be  fruitful  love  of  God.  And 
this  indeed,  in  different  moods,  is  the  office  of  all  thinkers.  Even 
Rousseau's  sentimentality,  insipid  or  sickening  now,  was  savory 
and  healing  to  his  sophisticated  generation.  Had  his  writings 
had  no  other  effect  than  to  re-awaken  in  the  hearts  of  so  mamy 
mothers  the  duty  of  nursing  their  own  infants,  he  would  deserve 
well  of  the  Christian  world. 

FLORENCE,  October,  1841. 

We  remained  at  Geneva  a  fortnight,  preparing  for  Italy.  On 
the  third  of  September  we  set  out  by  the  route  of  the  Simplon, 
along  the  southern  shore  of  the  Lake  and  up  the  valley  of  the 
Rhone,  sleeping  the  first  night  in  Martigny,  the  second  in  Brigg, 
at  the  foot  of  the  pass.  The  valley  of  the  Rhone  is  generally 
level,  barren,  and  subject  to  inundation.  The  long  day's  drive 
from  Martigny  to  Brigg  was  of  less  interest  than  any  we  had  had 
in  Switzerland.  The  valley,  almost  unpeopled,  without  deep 
verdure  or  the  softness  of  tillage,  desolate  without  being  wild, 
offers  no  pictures  to  the  eye  ;  and  the  mountains  that  enclose  it, 
are  bare  and  cold  without  elevation  enough  for  grandeur.  This 
is  one  of  the  worst  regions  for  goitre  and  cretinism.  Before  noon 
we  stopped  to  change  horses  in  the  public  square  of  Sion,  the 
capital  of  the  canton  of  Valais.  Happening  to  be  a  market  day, 
there  was  a  throng  of  people  in  the  square.  An  assemblage  of 
such  unsightly  human  beings  I  never  beheld.  Nearly  all  looked 
as  if  they  were  more  or  less  under  the  blight,  whose  extreme 
effect  is  the  idiocy  called  cretinism.  Mostly  of  a  pallid  Indian 
hue,  with  lank  black  hair,  they  had  a  strange  weird  look. 


66  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

At  Brigg,  whilst  we  were  getting  ready  to  start  in  the  morning, 
the  master  of  the  hotel,  whose  son  or  son-in-law  had  the  furnish- 
ing of  horses,  came  to  inform  me  that  I  should  have  to  take  six 
for  the  ascent.  I  represented  to  him  that  for  a  carriage  like  mine 
four  would  be  as  sufficient  as  six,  and  that  it  would  be  unreason- 
able, unjust,  and  contrary  to  his  own  printed  regulations  to 
impose  the  additional  two  upon  me.  The  man  insisting,  I  objected, 
then  remonstrated,  then  protested.  All  to  no  purpose.  I  then 
sought  out  the  burgomaster  of  the  town,  to  whom  with  suitable 
emphasis  I  represented  the  case.  He  could  not  deny  that  the 
letter  of  the  law  was  on  my  side.  Whether  or  not  he  had  the 
power  to  over-rule  the  post-master  I  don't  know,  but  at  all  events 
my  appeal  to  him  had  no  practical  result ;  the  carriage  came  to 
the  door  with  six  horses.  I  had  the  poor  satisfaction  of  letting 
the  inn-keeper  hear  his  conduct  worded  in  strong  terms,  and  of 
threatening  him  with  public  exposure  in  the  guide-books  as  an 
extortioner,  which  threat  acted  most  unpleasantly  upon  his  feel- 
ings, and  I  hoped,  kept  him  uncomfortable  for  some  hours. 

What  a  contrast  between  the  irritations  and  indignations  of  the 
morning,  and  the  calm  awed  feelings  of  the  day !  'Twould  be 
worth  while  for  an  army  to  be  put  into  a  towering  passion  at  the 
base  of  the  Simplon,  just  to  have  all  anger  quelled  by  the  sub- 
duing sublimities  of  its  sides  and  summit.  As  we  went  up  the 
broad  smooth  road  of  Napoleon,  the  gigantic  mountains  opened 
wider  and  wider  their  grandeurs,  heaving  up  their  mighty 
shoulders  out  of  the  abysses,  at  first  dark  with  firs,  and  later,  as 
we  neared  the  top  of  the  pass,  shining  far,  far  above  us  in  snow 
that  the  sun  had  been  bleaching  for  thousands  of  years.  We 
crossed  the  path  of  an  avalanche,  a  hundred  feet  wide,  that  had 
come  down  in  the  spring,  making  as  clean  a  swarth  through  the 
big  trees  as  a  mower's  scythe  does  in  a  wheatfield.  We  passed 
under  solid  arches,  .built,  or  cut  through  the  rock,  to  shield 
travellers  against  these  opake  whirlwinds,  these  congealed  hurri- 


THE  SIMPLON.  67 


canes,  this  bounding  brood  of  the  white  giantess,  begotten  on  her 
vast  icy  flanks  by  the  near  sun.  On  the  summit  of  the  pass,  the 
snowy  peaks  still  high  above  us,  we  came  to  the  Hospice,  and 
then  descending  quietly  on  the  southern  side  a  couple  of  miles, 
reached  about  sunset  the  village  of  Simplon.  At  the  quiet  inn 
we  were  greeted  by  two  huge  dogs  of  the  St.  Bernard  breed,  who, 
with  waggings  of  tail  and  canine  smiles,  seemed  doing  the 
hospitalities  of  the  mountain.  Here  we  met  two  English  travellers, 
and  spent  a  cheerful  evening  as  the  close  to  such  a  day.  After 
a  iound  sleep  under  thick  blankets  we  set  off  early  the  next 
morning.  What  a  starting  point,  and  what  a  morning's  drive  ! 
Ere  noon  we  were  to  be  in  Italy,  and  the  way  to  it  was  through 
the  gorges  of  the  Simplon. 

With  wheel  locked,  we  went  off  at  a  brisk  trot.  The  road  on 
the  Italian  side  is  much  more  confined  than  on  the  northern. 
Yesterday,  we  had  the  broad  splendors,  the  expanded  grandeurs, 
of  the  scene  ;  to  day  its  condensed  intenser  sublimities.  We  soon 
found  ourselves  in  a  tunnel  cut  through  a  rock  ;  then  sweeping 
down  deeper  and  deeper  into  what  seemed  an  endless  abyss ; 
close  on  one  side  of  us  a  black  wall  of  rock,  overhanging  hundreds, 
thousands,  of  feet,  and  darkening  the  narrow  path ;  as  close  on 
the  other  a  foaming  torrent,  leaping  down  as  it  were  a  wild 
creature  rushing  by  us  to  head  our  track.  Over  dark  chasms, 
under  beetling  precipices,  across  the  deafening  rush  of  waters, 
the  smooth  road  carried  us  without  a  suggestion  of  danger,  the 
wonders  of  the  sublime  pass  all  exhibited  as  freely  as  to  the 
winged  eagle's  gaze  ;  as  though  Nature  rejoiced  in  being  thus 
mastered  by  Art.  On  we  went,  downward,  downward.  At  last 
the  descent  slackens,  the  stream  that  had  bounded  and  leapt  beside 
us,  runs  among  the  huge  rocky  fragments,  the  gorge  expands  to 
a  valley,  the  fresh  foliage  of  chestnut  trees  shadows  the  road,  the 
valley  widens,  the  mountain  is  behind  us,  a  broad  even  landscape 
before  us,  the  air  is  soft,  the  sun  shines  hotly  on  fields  where 


SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


swarthy  men  are  at  work, — we  are  in  Italy  !  It  was  a  passage 
from  sublimity  to  beauty.  We  were  soon  among  vines  and  strong 
vegetation.  This  then  is  Italy.  How  rich  and  warm  it  looks ! 
We  entered  Duomo  d'Ossola,  the  first  town :  it  looked  solid  and 
time-beaten.  In  a  public  square  hard  by  where  we  stopped  for 
a  few  minutes,  was  a  plentiful  show  of  vegetables  and  fruit,  juicy 
peaches  and  heavy  bunches  of  grapes.  At  a  rapid  pace  we  went 
forward  towards  Lake  Maggiore.  These  are  the  "  twice-glorified 
fields  of  Italy."  This  is  beautiful,  passionate  Italy,  the  land  of  so 
much  genius,  and  so  much  vice,  and  so  much  glory.  This  is  the 
land,  for  centuries  the  centre  of  the  world,  that  in  boyhood  and  in 
manhood  is  so  mixp-d  in  our  thoughts,  with  its  double  column  of 
shinino-  names  familiar  to  Christendom.  It  was  late  in  the  after- 

D 

noon  when  at  Fariolo  we  came  upon  the  beautiful  Lake.  For 
ten  or  twelve  miles  the  road  ran  on  a  terrace,  whose  wall  was 
washed  by  its  waters.  About  sunset  we  passed  the  Borromean 
Islands,  the  evening  clear  and  bland.  'Twas  after  nightfall 
when  we  entered  Arona. 

We  had  to-day  an  incident,  which  gave  assurance  that  we 
were  arrived  in  Italy,  as  convincing  as  did  the  beauty  and  fruit- 
fulness  lavished  upon  this  chosen  land.  Opposite  in  character  to 
them,  that  have  their  source  in  bounty  and  love  ;  this,  in  penury  of 
spirit  and  hate.  It  came  too  from  one  of  "  God's  Vicegerents  on 
Earth,"  although  its  nature  smacked  of  paternity  in  the  Prince  of 
Darkness.  God  floods  his  creation  with  liberty  and  light,  the 
which  his  vicegerents,  Kings  and  Popes,  are  ever  busy  to  smother, 
lest  men  be  maddened  and  blinded  by  the  too  free  use  of  Heaven's 
best  gifts.  God's  vicegerents  !  his  counterworkers  rather.  They 
are  oftenest  the  very  antidotes  of  light.  Their  God  is  POWER, 
whom  they  worship  with  human  sacrifices.  Monarchies  and 
Hierarchies  are  the  tokens  of  man's  weakness.  The  stronger 
they,  the  weaker  he.  As  men  strengthen,  they  dwindle.  They 
are  like  props  planted  beside  a  young  tree,  that  having  insidiously 


VEXATIONS.  *       69 


taken  root,  divert  into  themselves  nourishment  due  to  it,  so  that 
the  tree  languishes  and  perishes,  while  they  thrive  and  wax 
strong.  They  are  the  bridle  put  into  the  horse's  mouth  in  the 
fable,  for  his  help,  as  he  foolishly  thought,  which  became  the 
instrument  of  his  enslavement.  They  are  the  stewards  of  Custom, 
which  is  the  tyranny  of  the  lower  human  faculties  over  the  higher. 
I  once  heard  when  a  boy  a  stump-speaker  at  a  "barbecue" 
declare,  that  a  visit  to  Europe  had  made  him  a  democrat.  The 
process  whereby  this  effect  was  wrought  will  be  clear  to  most 
Americans  who  sojourn  here  for  a  time.  As  counterpoise  to  this, 
it  will  be  but  fair  to  mention  that  German  Prince,  who,  becoming 
tainted  with  republicanism,  was  sent  to  the  United  States  to  be 
cured  thereof, — and  was  cured.  That  man  deserved  a  throne. 
But  to  the  incident. 

At  the  Piedmontese  frontier,  the  custom-house  officer,  who  as 
usual  examined  but  one  of  our  trunks,  hit  upon  the  one  that  con- 
tained books.  " Ah !  Books,"  said  he  ;  "I  must  make  a  list  of 
them."  Hereupon  he  ordered  his  assistant  to  take  them  all  out, 
my  representations  that  they  were  solely  for  my  own  use,  and 
that  I  was  merely  passing  through  Piedmont,  having  no  effect. 
On  first  alighting,  I  heard  one  say  to  the  other,  "  II  Signore  6 
militare;"  a  conclusion  which  was  probably  dispelled  by  the 
sight  of  the  contents  of  the  trunk,  and  not,  I  think,  to  my  advan- 
tage. The  making  of  the  list  was  a  long  process,  the  officer 
having  to  write  the  titles  that  were  not  Italian  letter  by  letter. 
The  task  seemed  to  him  a  hard  and  unaccustomed  one.  The 
subordinate  displayed  the  title  of  each  volume  beside  his  princi- 
pal, I  superintending  the  orthography.  The  assistant  handled 
the  books  carefully  and  even  tenderly,  as  though  in  his  eyes  they 
were  things  precious.  The  poor  man,  I  fancied,  looked  at  me 
with  an  expression  of  deferential  regard,  as  one  who  possessed 
and  had  free  access  to  such  a  treasure.  Among  them  was  Sil- 
vio Pellico's  story  of  his  imprisonment,  in  Italian.  He  turned  it  in 


70  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

his  hands,  looked  into  it,  gently  shuffling  over  the  leaves,  and 
quietly  glancing  from  the  volume  to  me,  not  at  all  as  if  he  would 
beg  it,  but  as  if  he  transferred  towards  me  some  of  the  feeling 
the  book  awakened  in  him.  He  probably  had  heard  vaguely  of 
Pellico's  martyrdom.  The  list  finished,  the  books  were  repacked, 
and  the  trunk  was  leaded,  that  is,  tied  round  with  stout  twine, 
over  whose  knot  was  pressed,  with  long  pincers,  a  small  leaden 
seal.  The  trunk  was  replaced  on  the  carriage,  and  a  paper  was 
given  me  certifying  its  contents  and  the  operation  it  had  under, 
gone.  This  overhauling  and  list-taking  was  but  the  commence 
ment  of  the  vexation.  The  next  day, — to  make  an  end  of  the 
story, — on  passing  out  of  Piedmont,  an  officer  was  sent  with  us  to 
see  the  sealed  trunk  delivered  unbroken  at  the  custom-house  of 
Lombardy,  some  distance  off.  It  was  just  as  if  I  had  had  a 
criminal  in  company,  and  Piedmont  warned  Austria  of  his  dan- 
ger. Books,  in  truth,  are  criminals  in  both  countries.  On 
arriving  at  Milan  I  was  obliged,  before  driving  to  the  hotel,  to  go 
first  to  the  custom-house,  to  leave  in  safe  keeping  the  mysterious 
trunk,  as  big  with  mischief  as  the  Grecian  Horse  to  the  Trojans, 
but  luckily  by  the  vigilance  of  Piedmont  its  diabolical  purport 
was  revealed  to  Austria.  Quitting  Milan  I  had  to  call  for  it,  to 
leave  it  again  at  the  Piedmontese  custom-house  on  re-entering 
Piedmont  on  the  road  to  Genoa ;  for  I  found  that  otherwise,  owing 
to  a  press  of  business  there,  I  should  be  delayed  two  or  three 
hours.  It  came  after  me  the  next  day  to  Genoa,  where,  not  to 
have  any  more  frontier  troubles,  I  left  it,  to  be  sent  to  Florence, 
which  it  reached  several  days  later,  bringing  with  it  a  bill  against 
me,  for  separate  travelling  charges,  of  ten  dollars.  This  affair, 
trifling  as  it  appears,  marred  the  enjoyment  of  our  first  days  in 
Italy.  It  makes  a  man,  too,  feel  little,  to  find  himself  utterly  de- 
fenceless against  such  pitiful  abuses  from  low  officials. 

Through  the  bountiful   plains  of  Lombardy,  we  had  a  short 
day's  drive  from  Arona  to  Milan,  passing  near  the  first  battle-field 


MILAN.  71 


between  Scipio  and  Hannibal.  Entering  Milan  by  the  arch  of  the 
Simplon,  we  came  first  upon  the  broad  Parade,  or  Place  d'Armes, 
where  the  cannon  are  kept  always  loaded,  Milan  being  the  capi- 
tal of  the  Austrian  Lombardo- Venetian  Provinces,  and  residence 
of  the  Imperial  Viceroy.  The  two  principal  objects  of  Milan 
are,  Leonardo  da  Vinci's  great  picture  of  the  last  supper,  and  the 
cathedral,  a  vast,  beautiful,  gothic  structure  of  white  marble, 
from  whose  roof  ascends  a  forest  of  light  pinnacles  and  marble 
needles,  surmounted  by  statues.  Around,  upon  and  within  the 
church  are  two  or  three  thousand  statues,  numbers  of  them  the 
effigies  of  benefactors.  Conspicuous  on  a  pinnacle  was  one  of 
Napoleon.  A  gift  of  cash  to  the  church  will  obtain  for  the  donor 
the  honor  of  a  statue,  its  prominence  and  elevation  being  measured 
by  the  amount  bestowed.  What  inventive  genius  these  solemn 
gentlemen  of  the  robe  have  always  shown  in  unloosing  the  clasp 
of  money- clutching  man  !  What  a  scent  they  have  for  the  trail 
of  gold  !  A  traveller  relates,  that  passing  through  "  the  noble 
little  state  of  Connecticut,"  and  stopping  to  bait  in  one  of  its 
dreariest  townships,  he  asked  a  tall  raw-boned  man,  who  was 
measuring  him  keenly  with  his  eye,  what  the  people  did  in  so 
barren  a  country  for  a  living  :  "  When  we  can  catch  a  stranger, 
we  skin  him,  and  when  we  cant,  we  skin  one  another."  I  defy 
the  leanest  native  in  the  stoniest  part  of  Connecticut,  to  devise  the 
means  more  shrewdly  for  compassing  a  given  dollar,  than  these 
ghostly  bachelors.  From  the  roof  of  the  cathedral  we  looked  down 
into  the  opulent  city  beneath,  and  far  away  over  the  rich  plain 
of  Lombardy.  To  the  west,  as  distant  as  the  pass  of  the  Simplon, 
was  visible  the  snowy  head  of  Mount  Rosa. 

We  left  Milan  after  forty-eight  hours,  and  were  a  day  and  a 
half  on  the  road  to  Genoa,  sleeping  the  first  night  in  a  clean  good 
inn  at  Novi.  Some  miles  out  of  Milan,  not  far  from  Pavia,  we 
stopped  to  see  the  famous  Chartreuse,  with  its  beautiful  church 
and  dozen  little  chapels,  each  one  enriched  with  precious  mar- 


72  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

bles  exquisitely  wrought  and  inlaid,  whereon  millions  have  been 
spent  in  work  and  materials.  Madame  de  Stael  said,  that  Genoa 
has  the  air  of  having  been  built  by  a  Congress  of  Kings.  We 
walked  through  its  streets  of  palaces,  searching  the  palaces  them- 
selves for  pictures,  which  is  the  chief  and  pleasantest  occupation 
of  the  stranger  passing  through  Italian  cities.  From  the  best 
points  we  had  a  survey  of  the  town  and  harbor.  The  port  is 
very  active,  and  Genoa  is  growing  in  population,  commerce  and 
wealth.  What  a  country  this  beautiful  Italy  would  be,  if  it  could 
drive  out  the  foreigner,  if  it  could  shake  off  ecclesiastical  domi- 
nation, if  it  could  bind  itself  up  into  a  single  nation,  if — but  there 
are  too  many  ifs. 

We  were  glad  to  find  ourselves  on  the  third  day  out  of  Genoa 
on  the  road  along  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean.     It  takes  some 
time  to  get  accustomed  to  Italian  cities  and  ways.     One  has  too  a 
feeling  of  loneliness,  which  custom  never  entirely  overcomes,  in 
a  large  crowded  town,  where  you  know  not  a  soul,  and  have 
speech  with  none  but  hirelings  ;  so  that,  after  having  "  seen  all 
the  sights,"  you  are  cheered  by  departure,  and  smile  upon  the 
Cerberus  at  the  gate,  who  stops  your  carriage  to  learn  from  your 
passport  that  you  have  the  right  to  go.     Starting  from  Genoa  in 
the  afternoon,  we  slept  the  first  night  at  Chiavari,  the  second  at 
Massa.     The  Mediterranean  on  the  right,  valleys  and  hills  on 
the  left ;  the  road  winding,  mounting,  descending  with  the  move- 
ments of  the  shore,  where  land  and  sea  are  gently  interlocked ; 
compact  towns  nestled  in  the  green  bosom  of  valleys,  the  moun- 
tains behind,  the  sea  before  them  ;  vines  gracefully  heavy  with 
purple  grapes,  festooned  from  tree  to  tree  ; — these  are  the  chief 
features  of  the  day-long  picture.     From  Massa,  seated  by  the 
water,  with  a  shield  of  marble  mountains  against  the  north,  we 
started  early  on  the  sunny  morning  of  the  16th  of  September, 
wishing  to  reach  Florence  before  dark.     We  soon  left  the  sea, 
and  crossing  the  mountain  range,  went  down  on  the  other  side 


LUCCA.  73 


into  the  territory  of  Lucca,  among  hills  clothed  with  chestnut  and 
olive,  and  fields  the  gardens  of  Plenty,  the  sun  shining  warmly, 
the  earth  breathing  fragrantly  through  its  leafy  abundance. 
Valery,  in  his  excellent  guide-book,  recommended  to  me  by 
Wordsworth  (Murray's  wasn't  yet  published)  says  of  Lucca ; — 
"  Un  certain  perfectionnement  social  et  philosophique  parait  avoir 
prevalu  pendant  long  temps  dans  ce  petit  etat,  qui  n  'eut  jamais 
de  J^suites.  L'Encyclopedie  y  fut  re-imprimee  en  28  vol.  folio, 
1758-71."  Surely  the  Lucchese  were  wise  to  keep  out  the 
Jesuits  ;  for  priestly  venom,  which  so  poisons  in  Italy  the  cup  of 
life,  festers  nowhere  to  bitterer  virulence  than  in  that  dehuman- 
ized corporation.  But  the  letting  in  of  such  a  flood  of  French 
philosophy,  as  is  implied  by  a  reprint  of  the  renowned  Encyclope- 
dic, that  was  a  questionable  proceeding.  Yet  after  all,  Voltaire, 
Diderot  and  their  associates  sharpened  and  helped  to  disenthral 
the  intellect  of  the  Christian  world  ;  they  opened  the  eyes  of  men, 
though  they  could  not  tell  them  what  it  was  best  to  look  at.  Va- 
lery, whose  book  is  that  of  a  man  of  letters,  and  is  a  mine  of 
minute  historical,  biographical  and  miscellaneous  information,  lets 
go  no  opportunity  of  bringing  France  and  Frenchmen  before  his 
readers.  Always  cheerful  and  polished,  he  is  a  thorough  zealous 
Frenchman,  who  neither  disturbs  nor  is  himself  disturbed  by  the 
stifFest  nationalism  of  another. 

While  changing  horses  in  Lucca,  we  were  tempted  by  voluble 
domestiques  de  place  with  enumeration  of  the  sights  of  the  town ; 
but  our  eyes  and  hearts  were  set  upon  Florence.  The  post- 
master questioned  us  eagerly,  how  many  carriages  were  behind. 
Now  is  his  autumnal  harvest.  The  English,  to  whom  all  other 
travellers  are  so  much  indebted  for  the  cleanliness  and  comfort 
of  the  inns  on  the  Continent,  are  swarming  southward.  Soon 
after  quitting  Lucca  we  entered  Tuscany, — proud  Tuscany,  in 
bygone  times,  the  intellectual  centre  of  Italy,  the  home  of  her 
language,  the  warm  nest  of  genius,  the  cradle  of  her  giants,  of 
5 


74  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


Dante,  of  Michael  Angelo,  of  Bocaccio,  of  Petrarca,  of  Leonardo 
da  Vinci,  of  Machiavelli,  of  Galileo.  By  Pistora  and  Prato,  we 
drove  along  the  south-western  base  of  the  Appenines,  and  through 
fields  closely  tilled  up  to  the  trunks  of  the  olive,  the  mulberry, 
and  the  vine,  and  among  white  villas  glistening  in  the  western 
sun,  we  approached  the  high  walls  of  Florence. 

Nature  and  Art  contend  the  one  with  the  other  in  beautifying 
Florence.  Except  westward,  where  the  Arno  flows  towards  the 
sea,  all  about  her  are  gentle  hills  that  have  come  down  from 
mountains,  visible  here  and  there  in  the  distance.  The  Appenines 
and  the  Arno  have  scooped  out  a  site,  which  man  has  made  much 
of.  The  moment  you  pass  out  of  almost  any  one  of  the  gates, 
smooth  gentle  paths  tempt  you  up  heights,  as  if  eager  to  exhibit 
some  of  the  fairest  landscapes  even  of  Italy.  In  twenty  or  thirty 
minutes,  you  turn  round  to  a  view  embracing  the  dome-crowned 
town,  with  its  spacious  leafy  gardens,  and  far-stretching  valley, 
and  the  countless  heights  and  mountains  which,  bestudded  with 
white  villas,  churches,  convents,  and  -clothed  with  the  vine  and 
olive,  lie  all  round  "  the  most  beautiful  daughter  of  Rome." 
Towards  sunset,  seen  through  that  purple  haze,  which  gives  it  a 
voluptuous,  sleepy  aspect,  the  landscape,  so  beautiful  from  its 
forms  and  combinations,  looks  almost  like  an  illusion,  a  magical 
diorama.  Carefully  guarded  within  the  walls,  are  many  of  the 
loveliest  offspring  of  the  Arts,  ever  fresh  with  the  grace  of  genius ; 
without  them,  Nature  unrolls  her  indestructible  beauties,  height- 
ened by  Art  and  the  associations  of  creative  thought.  Within 
the  same  hour,  you  may  stand  before  the  Venus  of  Cleomenes 
and  on  the  tower  of  Galileo,  which  overlooks  Florence  and  the 
vale  of  the  Arno ;  before  the  Madonna  of  Raphael,  and  on  the 
"  top  of  Fiesole." 

Even  where  the  accumulations  of  Time  are  the  most  choice, 
the  curiosities  outnumber  by  much  the  beauties;  so  that  the 
sight-seer  has  some  weary  and  almost  profitless  hours,  and  re 


FLORENCE.  75 


joices  occasionally  like  Sterne,  when  the  keys  could  not  be  found 
of  a  church  he  went  to  see.  It  is  true,  sight-showing  has  become 
so  lucrative,  that  he  seldom  has  that  pleasant  disappointment. 
Neither,  on  the  other  hand,  does  one  like  to  miss  anything,  nor  to 
do  by  halves  what  one  has  come  so  far  to  do.  There  are  things 
loo  that  are  not  much  in  the  seeing,  but  that  it  is  well  to  carry 
away  the  memory  of  having  seen.  The  rapid  traveller  through 
crowded  Italy,  must  therefore  work  nimbly  with  body  and  mind, 
from  morn  till  night,  to  accomplish  his  labor  of  love.  As  we 
have  the  winter  before  us  in  Florence,  we  proceed  here  in  a  more 
idle  and  gentlemanly  way.  We  can  lounge  among  the  marvels 
of  the  Pitti  and  the  Uffizii,  and  let  the  mood  of  the  moment  prompt 
us  what  to  sit  before,  without  self-reproach,  postponing  the  rest 
till  to-morrow,  or  next  week,  or  next  month ;  or  we  can  even  let 
a  whole  day  go  over,  without  setting  eyes  on  a  picture  or  a  statue 
or  a  church.  Some  of  our  first  and  pleasantest  hours  were  spent 
in  the  studios  and  company  of  our  own  sculptors.  It  is  much 
for  a  stranger,  to  have  here  fellow-countrymen  of  character  and 
intelligence,  who  rank  with  the  best  as  artists. 

The  first  fortnight  after  our  arrival,  the  town  was  enlivened  by 
the  presence  of  a  Scientific  Congress,  numbering  nearly  nine 
hundred  members,  mostly  Italians,  to  whom  the  amiable  Grand 
Duke  did  the  honors  of  his  capital  in  graceful  and  munificent 
style.  Among  his  hospitalities,  was  a  dinner  given  at  the  Poggio 
Imperiale,  one  of  his  villas  a  mile  out  of  the  Roman  Gate.  Nine 
hundred  guests  were  received  in  the  suite  of  elegant  drawing- 
rooms  on  the  first  floor,  and  sat  down  in  the  second  to  tables  sup- 
plied with  as  much  taste  as  luxury.  ;Twas  a  brilliant  animated 
scene.  After  dinner,  toasts  were  drank,  and  short  sprightly 
speeches  made  amidst  vivas  and  bravos.  The  guests  were  all 
carried  to  and  from  the  villa  in  carriages  furnished  by  the  host. 
As  we  drove  back  in  the  evening,  my  three  Italian  chance-com- 
panions vied  in  commendation  of  the  courtesy  and  liberality  of 


76  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

the  Grand  Duke.  At  last,  one  of  them,  a  tall,  stout,  comfortable 
shrewd-looking  man  of  about  fifty,  a  priest  too,  I  think,  informed 
us,  that  he  had  come  against  orders,  for  he  lived  in  the  dominions 
of  the  Pope  (who,  with  the  arch-priestly  dread  of  light,  prohibits 
his  subjects  from  attending  these  Congresses),  and  that  he  was 
the  only  representative  from  the  papal  states.  To  this  disclosure 
the  other  two  said  not  a  word,  and  I  dare  say,  what  in  me  rose 
as  a  suspicion,  mounted  in  them  to  pretty  nearly  a  brimming  con- 
viction, namely,  that  our  portly  papal  fellow-passenger  was  there 
for  the  purpose  of  taking  notes  quite  other  than  scientific. 

The  crowning  scene  to  the  proceedings  of  the  Congress  was 
its  last  meeting  in  full  session,  in  the  large  hall  of  the  old  Palace. 
Seven  or  eight  hundred  Italians,  educated  men,  numbers  of  them 
men  of  thought,  a  noble-looking  assemblage  of  heads.  The  pur- 
pose of  their  meeting  I  overlooked  in  the  bare  fact  of  such  a  con- 
vocation in  that  hall,  where  in  the  olden  times  of  popular  so- 
vereignty were  heard  the  stirring  accents  of  free  deliberation. 
May  it  be  an  omen  of  better  days,  when  an  assemblage  as  large 
and  enlightened  shall  meet  on  the  same  spot  for  even  higher  ob- 
jects, and  with  the  new  vivifying  feeling,  that  at  last  they  have 
become  once  more  thoroughly  men  ! 

FLORENCE,  May,  1842. 

One  can  lead  here  for  a  season  an  intellectual  life  without 
much  mental  effort,  with  enough  of  activity  to  keep  it  in  a  re- 
ceptive state  ;  and  the  mind  will  lay  up  stores  of  impressions,  to 
ripen  hereafter  into  thought.  The  Past  opens  to  the  stranger 
rich  pastures,  wherein  if  he  can  but  feed  with  healthy  instincts, 
he  will  assimilate  into  himself  abundantly  of  the  old.  The  crea- 
tive spirits  of  bygone  periods  invite  him  to  communion ;  all  they 
ask  of  him,  is  sympathy  with  their  labor.  Even  the  Poets  exact 
not  for  the  enjoyment  of  them,  that  vigorous  co-operation  in  the 
reader,  which  Wordsworth  justly  intimates  is  necessary  from 


71 


his.  The  best  Italian  poetry  is  no:e  superficial  than  the  best 
English.  It  is  based  upon,  net  'ibo  impregnated  throughout  with 
thought.  It  has  more  of  rvir.ic  and  sentrment,  of  form  and  grace. 
Only  Dante  obliges  you  *o  gather  yourself  up  as  for  a  fraternal 
wrestle.  Alfieri  at  first  somewhat,  until  you  have  found  the  key 
to  his  mind,  which  has  not  many  wards. 

A  scale  of  the  occup.Uions,  pastimes,  idleness,  of  a  semi-pas- 
sive half  year  in  Florence,  would  have  at  its  basis  the  walks  and 
drives  in  the  Cascine  and  environs.  But  first,  a  word  about  the 
climate.  It  is  much  like  ours  of  the  middle  states,  except  that 
our  winter  is  colder  and  drier.  An  American  is  surprised  at  this 
similarity  on  arriving  in  Italy,  having  got  his  notions  from  English 
writers,  who,  coming  from  their  cloudy  northern  island,  are  en- 
chanted with  the  sunny  temperance  of  an  Italian  winter,  and  op- 
pressed by  the  heats  of  summer.  The  heat  is  not  greater  than 
it  is  in  Maryland,  and  our  winter  is  finer,  certainly  than  that  of 
Florence,  being  drier,  and  though  colder,  at  the  same  time  sun- 
nier. As  with  us,  the  autumn,  so  gloomy  in  England,  is  cheer- 
ful, clear,  and  calm,  holding  on  till  Christmas.  They  have 
hardly  more  than  two  cold  months.  Already  in  March  the  spring 
is  awake,  and  soon  drives  back  Winter,  first  into  the  highest 
Appenines,  where  he  clings  for  a  brief  space,  and  thence  retreats 
up  to  the  topmost  Alps,  not  to  reappear  for  nine  or  ten  months. 
Nor  is  that  beautiful  child  of  the  light  and  air,  the  Italian  sunset, 
more  beautiful  than  the  American. 

Walking  or  driving  ; — the  opera,  theatre,  and  company  ; — the 
galleries  of  painting  and  sculpture,  and  the  studios  of  artists ; — 
reading  and  study  at  home.  Thus  and  in  this  gradation  would  I 
divide  the  hours  of  a  man  of  leisure  in  Florence,  especially  if  he 
be  one  whose  nerves  oblige  him  to  lead  a  life  of  much  more  gen- 
tlemanly idleness,  than  with  a  perfectly  eupeptic  stomach  he 
would  choose.  I  put  walking  and  driving  first,  as  being,  although 
the  most  innocent,  the  most  absolute  forms  of  idleness.  Tho 


78  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

Cascine,  a  public  promenade,  just  out  of  the  western  gate  of  the 
town,  stretching  a  couple  of  miles  down  the  right  bank  of  the 
Arno,  cannot  be  surpassed  in  situation  and  resources  by  anything 
similar  in  Europe.  In  warm  weather,  you  have  close  shade,  and 
in  cold,  the  sun  all  along  the  margin  of  the  stream,  with  a  hedge 
and  groves  of  pine  and  ilex  as  a  cover  against  the  tramontana  or 
north  wind.  Thither  on  Sundays  and  other  holidays  resort  the 
people  at  large,  and  every  day  in  fine  weather,  the  free  and  the 
fashionable,  including  among  the  former,  monks,  white  and 
brown,  whom  I  see  here  almost  daily  in  shoals,  with  a  sigh  at  the 
waste  of  so  much  fine  muscle. 

On  the  Continent,  not  a  town  of  twenty  thousand  inhabitants, — 
nay,  of  fifteen  or  ten,  but  has  its  theatre,  for  operas  or  comedies 
at  stated  seasons.  Music  and  the  theatre  are  not,  as  with  us,  an 
occasional  accidental  amusement,  but  an  habitual  resource :  they 
have  an  honorable  place  in  the  annual  domestic  budget,  even  of 
families  of  small  means.  Music  is  part  of  the  mental  food  of  the 
Italians.  It  is  to  them  a  substitute  for  the  stronger  aliment  of 
freer  countries.  May  it  not  be,  that  the  bounds  set  to  mental 
development  in  other  spheres,  are  in  part  the  cause  of  the  fuller 
cultivation  of  this  ?  Nature  always  strives  to  compensate  herself 
for  losses  and  lesions.  Life,  if  cramped  on  one  side,  will  often 
swell  proportionably  in  another.  Music  has  been  to  Italy  a  solace 
and  a  vent  in  her  long  imprisonment.  This  is  not,  of  course,  an 
endeavor  to  account  for  the  origin  of  musical  genius  in  Italy  : 
original  aptitudes  lie  far  deeper  than  human  reason  can  ever 
sound :  but,  that  the  people  has  musical  habits,  is  probably  in  a 
measure  owing  to  such  influences.  I  don't  remember  ever  to 
have  heard  an  Italian  whistle.  They  are  too  musical,  the  empti- 
est of  them,  for  that  arid  futility.  They  sing  as  they  go  for  want 
of  thought ;  and  late  at  night  'tis  most  cheerful  to  hear,  moving 
through  the  street,  laden  with  airs  from  operas,  mellow  voices 
that  die  sweetly  away  in  the  stillness,  to  be  followed  by  others, 


MUSIC.  70 


sometimes  several  in  chorus.  To  me  there  is  always  something 
soothing  and  hopeful  in  this  spontaneous  buoyant  melody,  the  final 
sounds  of  the  Italian's  day. 

As  nothing  in  Art  is  more  marketable  than  musical  talent, 
London  and  Paris  take,  and  keep,  to  themselves  the  first  adepts. 
To  the  gifted  songsters  of  the  South, — whose  warmth  seems  essen- 
tial to  the  perfecting  of  the  human  musical  organ, — showers  of 
gold  make  amends  for  showers  of  orange- blossoms  ;  and  the  daz- 
zling illumination  of  palaces  and  sumptuous  theatres,  for  the  bril- 
liancy of  their  native  sky.  Italy  scarcely  hears,  in  die  fulness 
of  their  powers,  her  Pastas,  Malibrans,  Grisis,  Lablaches,  Rubinis. 
Their  gifts  once  discerned,  they  are  wafted  across  the  Alps,  to 
share  the  caresses,  the  triumphs,  the  largesses  of  the  great 
northern  capitals.  When  their  career  is  run,  the  most  of  them 
come  back  to  their  never- forgotten  home.  The  dear,  beautiful, 
sorrow-stricken  mother,  who  gave  them  their  cradles, — and  who 
alone  could  give  them, — gives  them  too  a  tomb.  Florence  there- 
fore has  no  richly  equipt  opera.  In  Italy  itself,  Naples  and  Milan 
have  choice  before  her. 

The  Opera  is  not  a  perfectly  pure  form  of  Art.  It  is  a  forced 
marriage  between  language  and  action  on  the  one  side,  and  music. 
The  poetry  of  the  language  is  smothered  by  the  music,  while  on 
the  other  hand  words  often  clog  the  wings  of  melody.  Language 
and  action  are  definite,  music  is  vague.  In  their  union,  the 
indefiniteness  of  music  is  resisted,  the  distinctness  of  words  is 
obliterated  by  a  haze,  albeit  a  golden  haze.  In  the  compromise, 
whereby  the  union  is  brought  about,  some  violence  is  done  to  the 
nature  of  each.  The  effect  of  music  is  best  when  its  source  is 
invisible.  This  mode  of  presentation  accords  with  its  nature  ; 
for  music  is  a  voice  from  the  depths  of  the  infinite, — a  disembodied 
spirit,  delivering  its  message  through  the  least  substantial  medium 
of  access, — sound.  The  glaring  showiness,  the  pomp  and  cor- 
poreal effort  of  the  stage,  are  an  obstruction  to  its  airy  aspirations. 


80  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

While  to  the  dramatic  reality  the  music  imparts  a  lightness  and 
poetic  transparence,  by  these  coarse  material  forms  some  of  its 
own  life  is  absorbed.  Of  all  Art  the  genuine  effect  is,  to  exalt 
the  tone  of  the  mind,  to  refine  its  temper.  Even  the  knowledge 
communicated  is  but  incidental,  altogether  subsidiary  to  a  fruit, 
fuller  gain.  Facts,  history,  Art  uses  merely  as  vehicles,  to  con- 
vey  to  the  mind  its  offerings  of  beauty.  The  results  of  Art  are 
not,  like  scientific  acquirements,  tangible,  measureable  j  they 
are  chiefly  in  the  mood  awakened.  The  deepest,  grandest  truths^ 
which  it  is  the  function  of  Art  to  reveal  and  illustrate,  are  pre, 
sented  in  an  indirect  way.  A  noble  poem  leaves  the  mind  of  the 
reader-  in  an  expanded  state.  He  feels  a  higher,  clearer  con- 
sciousness of  life,  a  broader  hope,  a  refreshed  content.  Available 
facts  have  not  been  piled  away  in  his  memory ;  but  his  best  sus- 
ceptibilities have  been  stimulated  ;  his  nature  has  been  attuned 
on  a  higher  key  than  common ;  he  has  a  quickened  sensation  of 
freedom,  of  nobility.  He  is  lifted  into  a  higher  state  of  being, 
and  in  that  state  is  apter  for  the  performance  of  all  practical 
duties.  Herein  consists  the  noble  usefulness  of  poetry,  of  Art. 
This  mental  exaltation,  this  disenthralment  of  the  spirit  from  all 
gross  bonds,  good  music  especially  never  fails  to  produce.  Its 
opening  voice  is  a  grateful  summons  to  the  spiritual  part  of  our 
nature.  The  glare,  bustle  and  complex  movements  of  the  stage, 
make  a  confusion  of  effects.  The  spectacle,  busying  the  senses, 
unstrings  the  rapt  intentness  of  the  spirit.  The  joyful  calm 
and  solemnity  of  the  religious  mood,  always  created  by  the  best 
music,  is  ruffled. 

For  a  really  good  society,  two  things  are  requisite  ;  a  high  state 
of  culture,  and  the  habitual  re-union  of  the  most  cultivated  through 
genial  and  intellectual  sympathies.  But  as  social  distinctions,  in 
part  factitious,  prevail  even  in  republican  countries,  this  fusion 
into  unity  under  high  influences,  is  nowhere  more  than  partially 
practicable.  Gross  and  accidental  advantages  are  still  prized, — 


SOCIETY.  81 


and  that  even  by  the  intellectual, — above  those  that  are  inherent 
and  refined.  They  who  possess,  watch  them  jealously.  Instead 
of  the  salve,  printed  in  large  letters  on  Goethe's  threshold,  they 
would  like  to  inscribe  on  theirs,  "  No  admittance  to  strangers ;" 
that  is,  to  those  who  hav'n't  the  same  interests  to  guard.  Against 
a  partition  of  their  power,  they  in  various  ways  protest ;  and  now 
with  the  more  emphasis,  from  a  perception  of  the  growing  disre- 
gard of  them.  The  land  of  Promise,  where  men  and  things  shall 
be  valued  at  their  just  worth,  is  much  too  remote  for  its  remote- 
ness to  be  measured  ;  and  we  can  only  discover  that  we  are  less 
far  from  it,  by  a  comparison  of  where  we  are  with  where  we  have 
been, — a  comparison  which,  if  made  broadly  and  with  a  free 
spirit,  will,  in  other  domains  of  life  as  well  as  in  this,  induce 
hopefulness  and  trust. 

The  second  requisite,  therefore,  is  found,  from  general  causes, 
as  little  in  Florence  as  elsewhere,  and  less  than  in  the  great  capi- 
tals. As  to  the  first,  Florence  has  its  creditable  circle  of  men 
of  Letters,  Science,  and  Art.  But  while  with  those  to  whom  rank 
and  affluence  give  opportunities  of  education,  they  are  but  slen- 
derly connected,  they  are  at  the  same  time  sundered  from  the 
masses ;  they  and  the  multitude  cannot  duly  co-operate ;  their 
light  scarcely  pierces  the  blighting  shade  cast  upon  the  people  by 
the  tangled  brambles  of  priestly  abuse.  A  community  under 
Roman  ecclesiastical  dominion,  cannot  attain  to  the  highest  state 
of  culture  possible  in  its  age.  By  the  growth  and  diffusion  of 
knowledge,  through  the  long  peace  and  the  intercommunication 
among  nations,  the  bonds  of  episcopal  tyranny  have  been  some- 
what loosened  in  the  Italian  states.  The  body  of  the  scientific 
and  literary  men  have  of  course  always  lived  in  secret  protest 
against  this  curse.  But  though  they  hate  the  tyrants  and  con- 
temn their  impostures,  they  cannot  escape  from  them.  The  mind 
is  stinted  and  thwarted  in  its  wants  and  aspirations.  Thought 
itself,  free  in  the  dungeon  and  on  the  rack,  languishes  where  ii 
5* 


B2  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

has  not  free  utterance  by  speech  and  pen.  That  under  this  long 
double  load  of  political  and  religious  despotism,  the  Italians  have 
still  kept  alive  the  sacred  fire  of  knowledge ;  have,  through  the 
thickest  atmosphere,  shot  up  into  the  sky,  high  enough  for  all 
Europe  to  see  them,  lights,  poetic  and  scientific,  proves,  what  deep 
sources  of  life,  what  elasticity  and  tenacity  of  nature  there  are  in 
this  oppressed  people.  Let  those  who  for  their  abject  state  would 
despise  them,  think  of  this,  and  they  will  perhaps  wonder  that  the 
Italians  are  not  even  more  prostrate. 

The  political  despotism  to  which  Tuscany  was  subjected  by  the 
first  Medici,  has  been,  since  the  extinction  of  that  bad  breed,  a 
paternal  one,  under  a  branch  of  the  house  of  Austria.  Still, 
though  mild  and  forbearing  in  the  hands  of  the  present  worthy 
Grand  Duke,  and  his  father,  so  justly  beloved  by  the  Tuscans,  it 
is  a  despotism  (and  nothing  else  would  be  permitted  by  the  other 
states  of  Italy),  and  as  such,  crushes  in  the  people  some  of  the 
richest  elements  of  life.  Florence,  therefore,  cannot  be  in  advance 
of  its  sisters  in  social  organization  and  spirit.  Like  other  cities 
of  its  compass,  it  has  nothing  better  than  what,  by  a  combination 
of  the  figures  Amplification  and  Hyperbole,  is  termed  "  Good 
Society,"  composed  here,  as  elsewhere,  by  those  who  have  inherit- 
ed, or  by  wealth  acquired,  social  rank  ;  embracing  in  Florence, 
besides  the  native  noblesse  and  diplomatic  corps,  a  large  body  of 
"  nobility  and  gentry," — in  the  phrase  of  the  English  newspa- 
pers,— from  other  lands,  who  for  a  season  take  up  their  abode  in 
the  Tuscan  capital.  The  occupation  of  this  circle  is  idleness. 
Start  not  at  the  apparent  solecism.  It  is  but  apparent ;  for,  to 
people  who  are  not  urged  to  exertion  either  by  body  or  spirit ; 
whose  infinite  natures  are  in  a  measure  circumscribed  within  the 
animal  bounds  of  the  ephemera  of  the  fields,  their  whole  life 
revolving  in  a  quick  diurnal  orbit ;  whose  minds,  left  void  by 
exemption, — not,  however,  entirely  wilful, — from  active  duties 
and  labors,  are  obliged,  in  order  to  oppose  the  pressure  of  time, 


THE  GALLERIES.  83 


literally  to  make  something  out  of  nothing  ;  to  people  thus  dislo- 
cated from  the  busy  order  of  nature,  it  becomes  an  occupation, 
requiring  method  and  forethought,  to  resist  the  weight  of  their 
waking  hours,  and  maintain  the  daily  fight  with  ennui.  Their 
insipidity  of  life  is  seasoned  by  a  piquant  ingredient,  supplied  by 
clouds  of  little  cupids, — imps  that,  with  their  inborn  perverseness, 
choose  here  to  hover  over  nuptial  couches,  assaulting  the  hymeneal 
citadel  with  such  vigor,  that  all,  says  dame  Gossip,  have  not 
strength  to  withstand  them.  Their  chief  public  performances 
are,  to  support  the  opera,  and  adorn  the  Cascine  with  their 
equipages  and  toilettes. 

The  Galleries  of  Painting  and  Sculpture  come  next  in  the  scale, 
on  which  I  have  subdivided  the  hours  of  a  stranger's  Florentine 
sojourn.  They  might,  without  inaccuracy,  take  their  place  under 
the  head  of  company.  Genuine  works  of  Art  speak  to  you  more 
clearly  than  most  tongue-wagging  speakers.  In  them  is  a  soul 
which  puts  itself  at  once  in  connexion  with  yours.  When  at 
Antwerp,  I  never  walked  on  the  ramparts  without  feeling  what 
companionship  there  was  in  the  spire  of  the  Cathedral :  the  mind 
felt  its  presence  constantly  and  cordially.  A  shot-tower,  you 
will  say,  of  equal  height,  that  met  the  eyes  whenever  they  were 
turned  towards  the  town,  would  have  been  just  as  much  company. 
With  this  difference :  that  the  one  would  be  the  company  of  a 
ponderous  bore,  the  other,  that  of  a  buoyant  poet. 

Whenever  your  mood  is  that  way  bent,  you  betake  yourself  to 
the  Grand  Duke's  residence,  the  Pitti  Palace.  Passing  through 
its  wide  portal,  you  ascend,  under  the  guidance  of  civil  guards, 
by  broad  flights  of  steps,  to  a  suite  of  spacious  apartments,  where 
are  lodged  Raphael,  and  Titian,  and  Claude,  and  Rubens,  and 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  and  Guido.  From  room  to  room,  through  a 
long  series,  you  converse  with  these  great  spirits  for  hours  together 
if  you  choose.  Every  day  in  the  year,  except  Sundays  and  hoii- 
days,  these  refulgent  rooms  are  thus  courteously  thrown  open. 


84  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


The  servant  at  the  door,  who  takes  charge  of  your  cane  or 
umbrella,  is  not  permitted  even  to  accept  anything  for  the  service. 
A  noble  hospitality  is  this,  to  which  strangers  are  so  accustomed  that 
they  do  not  always  duly  value  it.  The  Gallery  attached  to  the 
old  Palace  over  the  "Uffizi.i,  where  is  the  Tribune  with  its  priceless 
treasures,  daily  invites  the  stranger  in  the  same  liberal  way. 

Among  the  studios  of  living  Artists,  the  most  attractive  natu- 
rally to  an  American,  are  those  of  his  fellow  countrymen.  Nor 
do  they  need  national  partiality  to  make  them  attractive.  The 
first  American  who  gained  a  reputation  in  the  severest  of  the 
Fine  Arts  was  GREENOUGH.  For  some  years  he  was  the  only 
sculptor  we  had,  and  worthily  did  he  lead  the  van  in  a  field 
where  triumphs  awaited  us.  I  happened,  five  or  six  years  ago,  to 
travel  from  Boston  southward  with  him  and  Powers,  and  heard 
Greenough  then  warmly  second  Powers'  inclination,  and  urge 
him  to  hasten  to  Italy.  Powers  was  soon  followed  by  Clevinger, 
who,  in  turn,  received  from  him  encouraging  words.  The  three 
are  now  working  here  harmoniously  together. 

Artists  of  merit  have  seldom  much  to  show  at  their  rooms ;  for 
their  works  are  either  made  to  order,  and  sent  to  their  destina- 
tions as  fast  as  finished,  or  they  are  sold  almost  as  soon  as  seen. 
Sculptors  have  an  advantage  over  painters,  inasmuch  as  they 
retain  the  plaster  casts  after  which  each  work  is  chiselled  in  marble. 
As  Greenough  does  not  always  finish  the  clay  model  up  to  the 
full  design  in  his  mind,  but  leaves  the  final  touches  to  the  chisel 
itself,  he  is  not  forward  to  exhibit  his  casts  taken  from  the  clay, 
the  prototypes  of  the  forms  that  have  been  distributed  to  different 
quarters  of  the  world.  He  has  just  now  in  his  studio,  recently 
finished  in  marble  for  a  Hungarian  nobleman,  an  exquisite  figure 
of  a  child,  seated  on  a  bank  gazing  at  a  butterfly,  that  has  just 
lighted  on  the  back  of  its  upraised  hand.  In  the  conception  there 
is  that  union  of  simplicity  and  significance,  so  requisite  to  make 
a  work  of  plastic  Art,  especially  of  sculpture,  effective,  and 


GREENOUGH.  85 


which  denotes  the  genial  Artist.  The  attitude  of  the  figure 
has  the  pliable  grace  of  unconscious  childhood ;  the  limbs  are 
nicely  wrought ;  and  the  intelligence,  curiosity,  delight,  implied 
and  expressed  in  its  gaze  at  the  beautiful  little  winged  wonder 
before  it,  impart  vividly  to  the  work  the  moral  element ;  wanting 
the  which,  a  production,  otherwise  commendable,  is  not  lifted 
up  to  one  of  the  high  platforms  of  Art.  The  mind  of  the  specta- 
tor is  drawn  into  that  of  the  beautiful  child,  whose  inmost  facul- 
ties are  visibly  budding  in  the  effort  to  take  in  the  phenomenon 
before  it.  The  perfect  bodily  stillness  of  the  little  flexible  figure, 
under  the  control  of  its  mental  intentness,  is  denoted  by  the 
coming  forth  of  a  lizard  from  the  side  of  the  bank.  This  is  one 
of  those  delicate  touches  whereby  the  artist  knows  how  to  beautify 
and  heighten  the  chief  effect. 

Another  work  of  high  character,  which  Greenough  is  just 
about  to  finish  in  marble,  is  a  head  of  Lucifer,  of  colossal  size. 
The  countenance  has  the  beauty  of  an  archangel,  with  the  hard, 
uncertain  look  of  an  archangel  fallen.  Here  is  a  noble  mould 
not  filled  up  with  the  expression  commensurate  to  it.  There  is 
no  exaggeration  to  impress  the  beholder  at  once  with  the  malevo- 
lence of  the  original  which  the  sculptor  had  in  his  imagination. 
The  sinister  nature  lies  concealed,  as  it  were,  in  the  features, 
and  comes  out  gradually,  after  they  have  been  some  time  contem- 
plated. The  beauty  of  the  countenance  is  not  yet  blasted  by  the 
deformity  of  the  mind. 

Greenough's  Washington  had  left  Italy  before  my  arrival  in 
Florence.  By  those  best  qualified  to  judge,  it  was  here  esteemed 
a  fine  work.  Let  me  say  a  few  words  about  the  nudity  of  this 
statue,  for  which  it  has  been  much  censured  in  America. 

Washington  exemplifies  the  might  of  principle.  He  was  a 
great  man  without  ambition,  and  the  absence  of  ambition  was  a 
chief  source  of  his  greatness.  The  grandeur  of  his  character  is 
infinitely  amplified  by  its  abstract  quality  ;  that  is,  by  its  clean- 


SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


ness  from  all  personality.  Patriotism,  resting  on  integrity  of  soul 
and  broad  massive  intellect^  is  in  him  uniquely  embodied.  The 
purity  and  elevation  of  his  nature  were  the  basis  of  his  success. 
H&d  his  rare  military  and  civil  genius  been  united  to  the  selfish- 
ness of  a  Cromwell,  they  would  have  lost  much  of  their  effective- 
ness upon  a  generation  warring  for  the  rights  of  man.  No  these, 
but  the  unexampled  union  of  these  with  uprightness,  with  stain- 
less disinterestedness,  made  him  Washington.  If  the  Artist 
clothes  him  with  the  toga  of  civil  authority,  he  represents  the 
great  statesman ;  if  with  uniform  and  spurs,  the  great  General. 
Representing  him  in  either  of  these  characters,  he  gives  prefer- 
ence to  the  one  over  the  other,  and  his  image  of  Washington  is 
incomplete,  for  he  was  both.  But  he  was  more  than  either  or 
both ;  he  was  a  truly  great  man,  in  whom  statesmanship  and 
generalship  were  subordinate  to  supreme  nobleness  of  mind  and 
moral  power.  The  majesty  of  his  nature,  the  immortality  of  his 
name,  as  of  one  combining  the  morally  sublime  with  commanding 
practical  genius,  demand  the  purest  form  of  artistic  representa- 
tion,— the  nude.  To  invest  the  colossal  marble  image  of  so  tow- 
ering, so  everlasting  a  man,  with  the  insignia  of  temporary  office, 
is  to  fail  in  presenting  a  complete  image  of  him.  Washington, 
to  be  best  seen,  ought  to  be  beh  Id,  not  as  he  came  from  the  hand 
of  the  tailor,  but  as  he  came  from  the  hand  of  God.  Thus,  the 
image  of  him  will  be  at  once  real  and  ideal. 

That  Greenough's  fellow-countrymen,  by  whose  order  this 
statue  was  made,  wou  1 J  have  preferred  it  draped,  ought  to  be  of 
no  weight,  even  if  such  a  wish  had  accompanied  the  order.  To 
the  true  Artist,  the  laws  of  Art  are  supreme  against  all  wishes 
or  commands.  lie  is  the  servant  of  Art  only.  If,  bending  to 
the  uninformed  will  of  his  employers,  he  executes  commissions  in 
a  way  that  is  counter  to  the  requirements  of  Art,  he  sinks  from 
the  Artist  into  the  artisan.  Nor  can  he,  by  stooping  to  unculti- 
vated tastes,  popularize  Art;  he  deadens  it,  and  so  makes  it 


GREENOUGH  87 


ineffective.  But  by  presenting  it  to  the  general  gaze  in  its  severe 
simplicity,  and  thus,  through  grandeur  and  beauty  of  form,  lifting 
the  beholder  up  into  the  ideal  region  of  Art, — by  this  means  he 
can  popularize  it.  He  gradually  awakens  and  creates  a  love 
for  it,  and  thus  he  gains  a  wide  substantial  support  'to  Art  in  the 
sympathy  for  it  engendered,  the  which  is  the  only  true  further, 
ance  from  without  that  the  Artist  can  receive. 

A  statue  which  is  a  genuine  work  of  Art,  cannot  be  appreci- 
ated,— nay,  cannot  be  seen,  without  thought.  The  imagination 
must  be  active  in  the  beholder,  must  work  with  the  perception. 
Otherwise,  what  he  looks  at,  is  to  him  only  a  superficial  piece 
of  handicraft.  The  form  before  him  should  breed  in  him  con- 
jecture of  its  inward  nature  and  capacity,  and  by  its  beauty  or 
stamp  of  intellect  and  soul,  lead  him  up  into  the  domain  of  human 
possibilities.  The  majestic  head  and  figure  of  Washington  will 
reveal  and  confirm  the  greatness  of  his  character,  for  the  body 
is  the  physiognomy  of  the  mind.  That  broad  mould  of  limbs, 
that  stern  calmness,  that  dignity  of  brow,  will  carry  the  mind 
beyond  the  scenes  of  the  revolution,  and  swell  the  heart  with 
thoughts  and  hopes  of  the  nobleness  and  destiny  of  man.  Let 
the  beholder  contemplate  this  great  statue  calmly  and  thoughtfully ; 
let  him,  by  dint  of  contemplation,  raise  himself  up  to  the  point 
of  view  of  the  artist,  and  it  will  have  on  him  something  of  this 
high  effect.  He  will  forget  that  Washington  ever  wore  a  coat, 
and  will  turn  away  from  this  noble  colossal  form  in  a  mood  that 
will  be  wholesome  to  his  mental  state. 

This  attempt  to  justify  Greenough's  work  by  no  means  implies 
a  condemnation  of  other  conceptions  for  a  statue  of  Washington. 
A  colossal  figure, — but  partially  draped, — seated,  the  posture  of 
repose  and  authority, — Greenough's  conception,  seems  to  me  the 
most  elevated  and  appropriate.  Artists  have  still  scope  for  a 
figure,  entirely  draped  in  military  or  civil  costume,  on  horse-> 


88  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

back  or  standing.  Only,  this  representation  of  Washington  will 
not  be  so  high  and  complete  as  the  other. 

POWERS  left  America  with  a  goodly  cargo  of  busts  in  plaister, 
carrying  them  to  Italy,  there  to  execute  them  in  marble.  With 
these  he  opened  his  studio  in  Florence.  The  first  that  were 
finished  he  sent  to  the  public  exhibition.  All  eyes  were  at  once 
drawn  to  them.  Here  was  something  totally  new.  Here  was 
a  completeness  of  imitation,  a  fidelity  to  nature  never  before  ap- 
proached,  never  aimed  at  by  modern  sculptors.  Even  the  most 
delicate  blood-vessels,  the  finest  wrinkles,  were  traceable  in  the 
clear  marble.  Nor  did  the  effect  of  the  whole  seem  to  be  there- 
by marred.  People  knew  not  whether  their  astonishment  ought 
to  pass  into  admiration  or  censure.  The  Italian  sculptors  gath- 
ered themselves  up.  This  man's  Art  and  theirs  were  irreconcile- 
able.  They  felt, — we  must  crush  him,  or  he  will  overmaster 
us.  They  crowded  the  next  exhibition  with  their  best  busts. 
Powers  too  was  there.  In  the  Tuscan  capital,  a  young  American 
sculptor  not  merely  contended  publicly  with  a  host  of  artists  for 
superiority  ;  he  defied  to  mortal  combat  the  Italian  school  in  this 
department  of  Art  as  taught  by  Canova.  It  was  a  conflict  not 
for  victory  solely,  but  for  life.  Where  would  be  the  triumph, 
was  not  long  doubtful.  Powers'  busts  grew  more  and  more  upon 
the  public  eye.  The  longer  they  were  looked  at,  the  stronger 
they  grew.  By  the  light  they  shed  upon  the  art  of  sculpture, 
the  deficiencies  of  their  rivals  became  for  the  first  time  fully 
apparent.  Connoisseurs  discovered,  that  they  had  hitherto  been 
content  with  what  was  flat  and  lifeless. 

The  principle  of  the  academic  style  of  bust-making,  thus  sud- 
denly supplanted,  was,  to  merge  the  minor  details  into  the  larger 
traits,  and  to  attempt  to  elevate, — to  idealize  was  the  phrase, — 
the  subject,  by  preserving  only  the  general  form  and  outline. 
The  result  was,  that  busts  were  mostly  faithless  and  insipid,  their 
insipidity  being  generally  in  proportion  to  their  unfaithfulness. 


POWERS. 


Powers  made  evident,  that  the  finest  traits  contribute  to  the  indi- 
viduality of  character ;  that  the  slightest  divergence  from  the 
particularities  of  form  vitiates  the  expression  ;  that  the  only  good 
basis  of  a  bust  is  the  closest  adherence  to  the  material  form,  as^ 
well  in  detail  as  in  gross.  So  much  for  the  groundwork.  Hand 
in  hand  with  this  physical  fidelity,  must  go  the  vital  fidelity  ; 
that  is,  a  power  to  seize  life  as  it  plays  on  that  beautiful  marvel, 
the  human  countenance.  From  the  depth  of  the  soul  cornea 
the  expression  on  the  countenance ;  only  from  the  depth  of  a  soul 
flooded  with  sensibility,  can  come  the  power  to  reproduce  this 
tremulous  mystical  surface.  Nay,  this  susceptibility  is  needed 
for  the  achievement  of  the  physical  fidelity  itself.  Without  it, 
the  lines  harden  and  stiffen  under  the  most  acute  and  precise  per- 
ception.  Finally,  to  this  union  of  accuracy  in  copying  the  very 
mould  and  shape  of  the  features,  with  sympathy  for  the  various 
life  that  animates  them,  must  be  added  the  sense  of  the  Beauti- 
ful. This  is  the  decisive  gift,  that  turns  the  other  rich  faculties 
into  endowments  for  Art. 

The  Beautiful  underlies  the  roughest  as  well  as  the  fairest 
products  of  Nature.  It  is  the  seed  of  creation.  In  all  living 
things  this  seed  bears  fruit.  In  the  embryo  of  each  there  is  a 
potentiality,  so  to  speak,  to  be  beautiful,  not  entirely  fulfilled  in 
the  most  perfect  developments,  not  entirely  defaced  in  the  most 
deformed.  This  spirit  of  beauty,  resplendent  at  times  to  the 
dullest  senses,  lambent  or  latent  in  all  living  forms,  pervading 
creation,  this  spirit  is  the  vitality  of  the  Artist.  In  it  he  has  his 
being.  His  inward  life  is  a  perpetual  yearning  for  the  Beauti- 
ful ;  his  outward,  an  endeavor  to  grasp  and  embody  its  forms  ; 
his  happiness  is,  to  minister  in  its  service;  his  ecstasy,  the 
glimpses  he  is  vouchsafed  of  its  divine  splendors. 

As  sympathy  with  the  motions  of  life  is  needed,  to  copy  physi- 
cal forms,  so  this  loving  intimacy  with  the  Beautiful  is  needed, 
to  refine  and  to  guide  this  sympathy.  In  short,  a  lively  sense  of 


90  SCENES  AND  THOUGH1S  IN  EUROPE. 


the  Beautiful  is  requisite,  not  merely  to  produce  out  of  the  mind 
an  ideal  head, — an  act  so  seldom  really  performed, — but  likewise, 
to  reproduce  a  living  head.  He  who  would  copy  a  countenance 
must  know  it.  To  know  a  human  face, — what  a  multiplex  pro- 
found knowledge  !  Not  enough  is  it,  to  have  a  shrewd  discrimi- 
nating eye  for  forms ;  not  enough,  to  peer  beneath  the  surface 
through  the  shifting  expression.  To  get  knowledge  of  any  in- 
dividual thing,  we  must  start  with  a  general  standard.  You 
cannot  judge  of  a  man's  height,  unless  you  bring  with  you  a 
generic  idea  of  measures  and  a  notion  of  manly  stature.  So  of 
a  man's  mind, — though  the  process  be  so  much  deeper, — and  so 
too  of  his  head  and  face.  A  preconceived  idea  of  the  human 
countenance  in  its  fullest  capability  of  form  and  expression,  an 
aboriginal  standard  must  illuminate  the  vision  that  aims  to  take 
in  a  complete  image  of  any  face.  What  mind  can  compass  this 
deep-lying  idea,  except  one  made  piercing,  transparent,  "  vision- 
ary," by  an  intense  inborn  love  of  beauty  ?  Each  face  is,  so  to 
speak,  an  offshoot  from  a  type ;  each  is  a  partial  incarnation  of 
an  ideal,  all  ideals  springing  of  course  out  of  the  domain  of 
Beauty.  It  is  only  by  being  able  to  go  back  to  this  ideal,  which 
stands  again  closely  linked  with  the  one,  final,  primeval,  perfect 
idea  of  the  human  countenance ;  it  is  only  by  thus  mastering,  I 
may  say,  the  original  possibility  of  each  face,  that  you  can  fully 
discern  its  characteristics,  its  essential  difference  from  other 
faces — learn  why  it  is  as  it  is  and  not  otherwise.  A  vivid,  elec- 
tric sensibility  to  the  Beautiful,  in  active  co-operation  with  the 
other  powers,  is  the  penetrating,  magnifying  telescope  wherewith 
alone  the  vision  is  carried  into  the  primitive  fields  of  being. 
Thus  is  every  face,  even  the  most  mis-shapen,  brought  within 
the  circle  of  the  Beautiful;  cannot  be  fully  seen,  cannot  be 
thoroughly  known,  until  it  is  brought  within  that  circle.  Under 
the  homeliest,  commonest  countenance,  there  is  an  inner  lamp 
of  unrevealed  beauty,  casting  up  at  times  into  the  features 


POWERS.  91 


gleams  of  its  light.  These  translucent  moments, — its  truest  and 
best  states, — the  Artist  must  seize,  in  order  to  effect  a  full  like- 
ness. This  is  the  genuine  idealisation.  And  these  states  he 
cannot  even  perceive  without  the  subtle  expansive  sense  of  the 
Beautiful. 

The  unexampled  excellence  of  Powers's  busts  was  soon  ac- 
knowledged. In  this  department  of  Art,  the  Italian  sculptors 
yielded  to  him  the  first  place.  Thorwaldsen,  on  coming, 
astonished,  out  of  Powers's  studio,  declared  that  he  could  not 
make  such  busts,  that  there  were  none  superior  to  them,  ancient 
or  modern.  The  cry  now  rose,  that  Powers  could  make  busts, 
he  could  copy  nature,  but  nothing  more.  This  false  inference 
sprang  not  wholly  from  jealousy,  but  in  part  from  the  false  school 
of  Art  long  dominant  in  Italy,  where  students  were  taught  to 
study  the  antique  more  than  Nature ;  whereby  the  perceptions 
and  mental  powers  became  so  weakened  and  sophisticated,  that  it 
was  no  longer  felt,  what  a  task,  how  high  and  intense  it  is,  truly 
and  vitally  to  copy  Nature.  Conceive  what  is  a  human  counte- 
nance,— the  most  wonderful  work  of  God  that  our  eyes  can  come 
close  to !  What  an  harmonious  blending  of  diverse  forms,  what 
a  compact  constellation  of  beaming  features,  what  concentrated 
life,  what  power,  what  variety,  what  unfathomable  significance, 
in  that  jewelled  crown  of  the  body,  that  transparent  earthly  tem- 
ple of  the  soul  !  Adequately  to  represent  this  masterpiece  of 
divine  workmanship,  what  a  deed  !  He  who  can  reproduce  it  in 
its  full  life  and  truth  and  character,  must  be  a  great  Artist ;  that 
is,  a  re-maker,  in  a  degree,  of  God's  works, — a  poet,  a  creator. 
To  copy  Nature,  forsooth  ;  the  words  are  very  simple :  the  act  is 
one  of  deep  insight,  of  noble  labor,  anything  but  a  superficial  work. 
He  who  performs  it  well,  co-works  with  Nature,  his  mind  exalted 
the  while  by  poetic  fervor.  Hence  none  but  Artists  of  the  first 
class  have  left  good  portraits. 

The  faculty  for  the  Ideal  is  then  indispensable  to  the  execution 


92  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

of  a  good  bust.  It  is  the  key-stone  which  binds  the  other  endow- 
ments into  the  beautiful  arch,  whereby  works  of  human  hands 
grow  stronger  with  time.  The  basis  in  plastic  Art  is  always, 
unerring  accuracy  in  rendering  physical  forms.  Sense  of  beauty 
and  correctness  of  drawing,  are  thus  the  two  extremes  of  the 
Artist's  means.  Between  them, — and  needed  to  link  them  in 
effective  union, — is  fullness  of  sensibility,  to  sympathize  with  and 
seize  the  expression  of,  all  the  passions  and  emotions  of  the  soul. 
These,  with  imitative  talent  and  manual  dexterity,  embrace  the 
powers  needed  as  well  in  the  portrait- artist  as  in  him  whose  sub- 
jects are  inventions.  I  speak  of  the  plastic  Artist  without  distin- 
guishing the  sculptor  from  the  painter.  The  difference  between 
them  is  in  the  inequality  of  their  endowment  with  the  faculties  of 
form  and  color  ;  the  sculptor  requiring  a  severer  eye  for  form 
than  the  painter,  and  dispensing  with  an  eye  for  color.  The  mo- 
ment the  Artist  begins,  by  the  working  of  his  imagination,  to 
compose  a  subject,  then  comes  into  active  play  the  Reason ;  the 
faculty  whereby,  in  every  department  of  work,  prosaic  as  well  as 
poetic,  the  mind  selects  and  adapts, — the  faculty  whereby  the 
means  within  reach  are  picked  and  arranged  for  the  completest 
attainment  of  the  end  in  view.  This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  only 
power  needed  in  larger  measure  for  the  artist  who  composes 
groups,  than  for  him  who  would  make  the  best  portrait. 

It  is  the  completeness  of  his  endowment  with  all  the  requisites 
for  sculpture,  that  stamps  Powers  with  greatness.  In  the  circle 
of  his  genial  gifts  there  is  no  chasm.  They  are  compactly  knit 
together.  To  his  ends  they  all  co-operate  smoothly,  through  that 
marvellous  instrument,  the  human  hand.  Such  is  the  precision 
of  his  eye,  that  he  who  exacts  of  himself  the  most  faithful  con- 
formity  to  Nature's  measurements,  never  needs  the  help  of  com- 
passes to  attain  it.  Such  his  sense  of  the  Beautiful,  that  he  does 
justice  to  the  most  beautiful  countenance,  and  has  given  a  new 
grace  even  to  draperies.  Such  his  sympathy  with  life,  that  with 


POWERS 


equal  ease  he  seizes  the  expressions  of  all  kinds  of  physiognomies, 
so  that  you  cannot  say  that  he  does  men  better  than  women,  old 
better  than  young ;  and  hereby,  in  conjunction  with  his  mimetic 
talent,  he  imparts  such  an  elastic  look  to  his  marble  flesh,  that  the 
spiritual  essence,  wherewith  all  Nature's  living  forms  are  vivified, 
may  be  imagined  to  stream  from  his  finger-ends  while  he  works. 
Such  his  manual  dexterity,  that  in  twenty  hours  he  can  turn  out 
one  of  these  great  busts  in  its  unparalleled  completeness.  And 
as  if  nothing  should  be  wanting  which  could  serve  in  his  calling, 
Nature  has  bestowed  on  him  a  talent,  I  may  call  it  a  genius,  for 
Mechanics,  which, — had  it  not  been  overborne  by  superior  facul- 
ties, destined  to  lift  him  up  into  the  highest  field  of  human  labor, 
— would  have  gained  for  him  a  name  and  living  as  an  inventive 
and  practical  machinist.  It  is  now  the  pliant  servant  of  nobler 
qualities  ;  helping  him  to  modelling  tools,  to  facilities  and  secu- 
rities for  the  elevation  or  removal  of  clay  models,  and  to  other 
contrivances  in  the  economy  of  his  studio. 

Powers  had  not  been  long  established  in  Florence,  ere  he  set 
about  his  first  statue,  the  Eve.  This  work  was  planned  before  he 
came  to  Italy.  Almost  precisely  as  it  stands  now  embodied  in 
attitude  and  character,  he  described  to  me  in  America  the  image 
he  had  there  evolved  in  his  mind.  The  figure  is  above  the  ave- 
rage height,  undraped  and  nearly  erect.  The  only  support  it  has 
from  without  is  a  broken  stem  by  the  side  of  the  left  leg,  repre- 
senting the  tree  whence  the  fruit  has  just  been  plucked.  On  this 
leg  is  thrown  the  weight,  the  other  being  slightly  bent  at  the  knee. 
The  head,  inclined  to  the  right,  follows  the  eyes,  which  are  fixed 
upon  the  apple,  held  in  the  right  hand,  raised  to  the  level  of  the 
breast.  The  left  arm  hangs  by  the  side,  the  left  hand  holding  a 
twig  of  the  tree  with  two  apples  and  leaves  attached.  The  hair, 
parted  in  the  middle  and  thrown  behind  the  ears,  falls  in  a  com- 
pact mass  on  the  back.  Round  the  outer  edge  of  the  circular 
plot  of  grass  and  flowers,  which  is  the  sole  basis  of  the  statue, 


94  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

coils  the  serpent,  who  rears  his  head  within  a  few  inches  of  the 
right  leg,  looking  up  towards  the  face  of  Eve. 

Here,  without  a  fold  of  drapery  to  weaken  or  conceal  any  of 
Nature's  lineaments,  is  the  mature  figure  of  a  woman  ;  nearly 
erect,  the  posture  most  favorable  to  beauty  and  perfectness  of 
proportion  ;  the  body  unconsciously  arrested  in  this  upright  atti- 
tude by  the  mind's  intentness  ;  while  the  deed  over  which  she 
broods,  without  disturbing  the  complete  bodily  repose,  gives  occu- 
pation to  each  hand  and  arm,  throwing  thereby  more  life  as  well 
into  them  as  into  the  whole  figure.  Thus  intent  and  tranquil, 
she  stands  within  the  coil  of  the  serpent,  whose  smooth  but  fiery 
folds  and  crest  depict  animal  fierceness,  and  contrast  deeply  with 
the  female  humanity  above  him.  Both  for  moral  and  physical 
effect  the  best  moment  is  chosen,  the  awful  pause  between  obedi- 
ence and  disobedience.  Her  fresh  feet  pressing  the  flowers  of 
Eden,  Eve,  still  in  her  innocent  nakedness,  is  fascinated  against 
her  purer  will, — the  mother  and  type  of  mankind,  within  whose 
bosom  is  ever  waging  the  conflict  between  good  and  evil.  What 
fullness  combined  with  what  simplicity  in  this  conception,  which 
bespeaks  the  richest  resources  of  imagination  under  guidance 
of  the  severest  purity  of  taste. 

How  shall  I  describe  the  execution  ?  Knowledge  and  skill  far 
exceeding  mine,  would  fall  short  of  transmitting  through  worda 
an  image  of  this  marvel  of  beauty.  The  most  that  the  pen  can 
do  before  a  master-piece  of  the  pencil  or  chisel,  is,  to  give  a  vivid 
impression  of  the  effect  it  makes  on  the  beholder,  and  a  faint  one 
of  the  master-piece  itself. 

In  executing  his  Eve,  Powers  has  had  twenty  or  thirty  models. 
From  one  he  took  an  ankle,  from  another  a  shoulder,  a  fragment 
from  the  flank  of  a  third ;  and  so  on  throughout,  extracting  his 
own  preconceived  image  piece  by  piece  out  of  Nature.  From 
ru?\  a  labor  even  a  good  Artist  would  recoil,  baffled,  disheartened, 
but  a  supreme  genius  does  Nature  accord  such  familiar!- 


I 


POWERS.  95 


ty.  With  instantaneous  discernment  his  eyes  detect  where  she 
comes  short,  and  where  her  subtle  spirit  of  beauty  has  wrought 
itself  out.  He  seizes  each  scrap  of  perfection,  rejects  all  the 
rest,  and  so,  out  of  a  score  of  models,  re-compounds  one  of  Na- 
ture's own  originals.  Such  is  the  movement  on  the  surface,  that 
the  statue  has  the  look  of  having  been  wrought  from  within  out- 
ward. With  such  truth  is  rendered  the  flexible  expression  im- 
parted to  flesh  and  blood  by  the  vital  workings,  that  the  great 
internal  processes  might  be  inferred  from  such  an  exterior.  The 
organs  of  animal  life  are  at  play  within  that  elastic  trunk  j  there 
is  smooth  pulsation  beneath  that  healthy  rotundity  of  limb.  The 
capacity  and  wonderful  nature  of  the  human  form  fill  the  mind 
as  you  gaze  at  this  union  of  force,  lightness,  and  buoyant  grace. 
In  spite  of  that  smooth  feminine  roundness  of  mould,  such  visible 
power  and  springiness  are  in  the  frame  and  limbs,  that,  though 
now  so  still,  the  figure  makes  you  think  of  Eve  as  bounding  over 
shrub  and  rivulet,  a  dazzling  picture  of  joyous  beauty.  Then, 
again,  as  the  eye  passes  up  to  the  countenance,  with  its  dim  ex- 
pression of  mingled  thought  and  emotion,  the  current  of  feeling 
changes,  and  the  human  mind,  with  its  wondrous  endowments, 
absorbs  for  awhile  the  beholder.  But  mark ;  it  is  by  the  power 
of  Beauty  that  he  is  wrought  upon.  Through  this,  humanity 
stands  ennobled  before  him.  By  this,  the  human  form  and  capa- 
bility are  dilated.  This  awakens  delight,  breeds  suggestion.  By 
means  of  this,  the  effect  of  the  statue  is  full,  various ;  its  signifi- 
cance infinite.  Take  away  its  beauty,  and  all  is  a  blank.  The 
statue  ceases  to  be. 

The  head  of  Eve  is  a  new  head.  As  it  is  beautiful,  it  is  Gre- 
cian ;  but  it  recalls  no  Greek  model.  Nor  Venus,  nor  Juno,  nor 
Niobe,  can  claim  that  she  helped  to  nurse  it.  Not  back  to  any 
known  form  does  it  carry  the  mind  ;  it  summons  it  to  compass  a 
new  one.  It  is  a  fresh  emanation  from  the  deep  bosom  of  Art. 
In  form  and  expression,  in  feature  and  contour,  in  the  blending  of 


96  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

beauties  into  a  radiant  unity,  it  is  a  new  Ideal,  as  pure  as  it  is 
inexhaustible.  Lightly  it  springs  into  its  place  from  the  bosom 
and  shoulders.  These  flow  into  the  trunk  and  arms,  and  these 
again  into  the  lower  limbs,  with  such  graceful  strength,  that  the 
wholeness  of  the  work  is  the  idea  that  establishes  itself  among 
the  first  upon  the  mind  of  the  beholder.  To  the  hollow  of  a  foot, 
to  the  nail  of  a  finger,  every  part  is  finished  with  the  most  labo- 
rious minuteness.  Yet,  nowhere  hardness.  From  her  scattered 
stores  of  beauty  Nature  supplied  the  details ;  with  an  infallible 
eye,  the  Artist  culled  them,  and  transferred  them  with  a  hand 
whose  firm  precision  was  ever  guided  by  grace.  The  Natural 
and  the  Ideal  here  blend  into  one  act,  their  essences  interfused  for 
the  unfolding  of  a  full  blossom  of  beauty. 

What  terms  are  left  to  speak  of  the  Venus  of  the  Tribune  ? 
None  stronger  are  needed  than  .such  as  are  used  in  speaking  of 
the  Eve  of  Powers.  Let  who  will  cry  presumption  at  him  who 
places  them  side  by  side.  Art  always  in  the  end  vindicates  her 
favorite  children.  The  Eve  need  fear  comparison  with  none  of 
them. 

The  clay  model  of  Eve  being  finished,  Powers's  mind  is  busy 
with  another  work,  also  a  single  female  figure,  which  he  will  set 
about  immediately.  It  will  represent  a  modern  Greek  captive, 
exposed  in  the  slave-market  of  Constantinople.  Like  Eve,  the 
figure  will  be  without  drapery  ;  like  her,  it  will  not  fail  to  be  a 
model  of  female  beauty,  though  in  frame,  size,  age,  character 
and  expression,  altogether  different. 

CLEVINGER  has  been  here  but  a  short  time,  and  is  zealously  at 
work  upon  the  crowd  of  busts  which  he  brought  with  him  from 
America,  and  several  that  he  has  modelled  in  Florence.  Among 
the  former  is  a  fine  one  of  Allston  ;  among  the  latter,  one  of 
Louis  Bonaparte,  ex-king  of  Holland,  so  admirably  executed,  that 
it  awakens  regret  that  there  is  none  of  equal  fidelity  extant  of  the 
Emperor  Napoleon. 


BROWN  AND  KELLOGG.  97 

Two  American  painters  are  established  here,  who  give  promise 
of  reaching  a  high  excellence ;  BROWN  and  KELLOGG.  Brown 
devotes  himself  chiefly  to  landscapes,  for  which  he  displays  rare 
aptitude.  He  has  just  finished  a  view  of  Florence,  admirable  in 
all  respects,  but  chiefly  for  the  truth  with  which  it  gives  the  rich 
hue  of  the  Italian  evening  sky.  An  evidence  of  his  gifts  for  this 
department,  is  the  style  in  which  he  copies  Claude  Lorraine,  repro- 
ducing the  character,  tone,  and  magical  coloring  of  that  great 
Artist  with  a  fidelity  that  might  impose  upon  a  practised  connois- 
seur. 

Kellogg,  by  the  progress  he  has  made  since  he  came  to  Flo- 
rence, has  shown  that  his  ability  is  equal  to  his  zeal.  With  an 
empty  purse,  and  a  spirit  devoted  to  Art,  he  landed  in  Italy 
eighteen  months  since.  In  that  period  his  genius,  through  indus- 
try and  judicious  study,  has  developed  itself  in  a  way  that  gives 
assurance  that  he  will  reach  a  high  rank. 

I  will  conclude  this  Florentine  chapter  with  a  few  chips  of 
"  fragments"  picked  up  in  that  division,  which  the  despotism  of 
nerves  over  the  intellectual  as  well  as  the  physical  man,  obliged 
me  to  put  last  in  my  scale  of  occupations  and  pastimes. 

Among  my  disappointments  are  Petrarca  and  Macchiavelli.  I 
am  disappointed  in  Petrarca  that  his  sonnets  are  written  more  out 
of  the  head  than  the  heart.  They  sparkle  with  poetic  fancy,  but 
do  not  throb  with  sensibility.  In  his  pleasant  little  autobiographical 
memoir,  Petrarca  ascribes  to  his  love  for  Laura  all  that  he  was 
and  did.  For  twenty  years,  it  was  the  breath  of  mental  life  to 
him.  Happily  he  was  not  of  an  energetic,  glowing  nature  (his 
portrait  might  be  taken  for  that  of  a  woman),  or  his  love  would 
have  consumed  instead  of  animating  him,  or,  worse  still,  would 
have  had  perhaps  a  quick  close  in  success.  I  am  sorry  to  con. 
elude,  that  he  was  very  far  from  being  the  most  miserable  man 
of  his  generation. 

Macchiavelli  is  not  the  searching  thinker  that  one  unacquainted 


98  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

with  his  works  might  infer  him  to  be,  from  his  so  long  sustained 
reputation.  He  is  a  vigorous,  accomplished  writer ;  a  clear, 
nervous  narrator.  Subtlety  in  the  discussion  of  points  of  political 
expediency,  seems  to  me  his  highest  power.  Princes,  nobles,  and 
populace,  are  to  him  the  ultimate  elements  of  humanity.  The 
deep  relations  of  man  to  man,  and  of  man  to  God,  do  not  come 
vividly  within  his  view.  He  has  no  thorough  insight  into  the 
moral  resources  of  man ;  he  does  not  transpierce  the  surface  of 
human  selfishness.  There  is  in  him  no  ray  of  divine  illumina- 
tion, whereby  he  might  discern  the  absolute.  But  it  is  unjust  to 
reproach  him  with  a  want  which  he  has  in  common  with  most  of 
his  brother  historians. 

A  just  reproach  against  him  is,  that  in  his  History  he  flattered 
the  Medici,  and  has  handed  down  a  misrepresentation  of  them. 
From  his  pages  no  one  would  learn  that  the  first  Medici  were 
usurpers,  successful  demagogues.  Sismondi  and  Alfieri  counter- 
act the  false  report  of  Macchiavelli,  and  disclose  the  long-con- 
cealed ugliness  of  these  vulgar  tyrants.  Describing  the  state  of 
Italy  at  the  death  of  Lorenzo,  and  the  loss  of  independence  with  that 
of  liberty,  Sismondi  says : — "  Florence,  mastered  for  three  gene- 
rations by  the  family  of  Medici,  depraved  by  their  licentiousness, 
made  venal  by  their  wealth,  had  learnt  from  them  to  fear  and  to 
obey."  The  hollowness  and  worthlessness  of  Pope  Leo  X.,  his 
prodigality,  dissoluteness,  and  incapacity,  are  exposed  by  Sismon- 
di, who  describes  as  follows  Pope  Clement  VII.,  another  Medici, 
and  the  one  to  whom  Macchiavelli,  in  a  fulsome  address,  dedicated 
his  History  of  Florence : — "  Under  the  pontificate  of  Leo  X.,  his 
cousin,  when  times  were  prosperous,  he  acquired  the  reputation 
of  ability ;  but  when  he  came  to  confront  distress  not  brought 
about  by  himself,  then  his  unskilfulness  in  matters  of  finance  and 
government,  his  sordid  avarice,  his  pusillanimity  and  imprudence, 
his  sudden  resolutions  and  prolonged  indecision,  rendered  him  nc* 
less  odious  than  ridiculous."  Sismondi  relates,  that  Lorenzo  de 


THE  MEDICI.  99 


Medici,  being  on  his  death-bed,  sent  for  Savonarola,  the  celebrated 
preacher  of  ecclesiastical  reform  and  devotee  to  liberty,  who  had 
hitherto  refused  to  see  Lorenzo,  or  to  show  him  any  respect. 
Nevertheless,  Lorenzo,  moved  by  the  fame  of  Savonarola's  elo- 
quence and  sanctity,  desired  to  receive  absolution  from  him.  Sa- 
vonarola did  not  refuse  to  him  consolations  and  exhortations,  but 
declared,  that  absolve  him  from  his  sins  he  could  not,  unless  he 
gave  proof  of  penitence  by  repairing  as  much  as  in  him  lay  his 
errors.  That  he  must  pardon  his  enemies,  make  restitution  of  his 
ill-gotten  wealth,  and  restore  to  his  country  its  liberty.  -  Lorenzo, 
not  consenting,  was  denied  absolution,  and  died,  says  Sismondi,  in 
the  possession  of  despotic  power,  "  mori  in  possesso  della  tiran- 
nide." 

Lorenzo  dei  Medici, — whose  portrait  in  the  gallery  here  is  that 
of  an  intellectual  sensualist,  whose  largesses,  pecuniary  liberali- 
ties and  sensual  sumptuosities  won  for  him  the  equivocal  title  of 
"  il  magnifico," — Lorenzo  and  Leo  X.  have  the  fame  of  being 
the  munificent  patrons  of  Poets  and  Artists.  All  the  fame  they 
deserve  on  this  score  is,  that  they  had  taste  to  appreciate  the  men 
of  merit  who  lived  in  their  day.  These  men  were  the  last  off- 
spring of  the  antecedent  energetic  times  of  liberty.  By  the  re- 
ceding waves  of  freedom  they  had  been  left  upon  the  barren  shore 
of  despotism.  What  had  Leo  X.  to  do  with  the  forming  of  the  emi- 
nent writers  and  artists  who  adorned  the  age  to  which  the  servil- 
ity of  men  has  given  his  name  ?  Patrons  of  Poets  and  Artists  !  A 
curse  upon  patronage.  Let  it  be  bestowed  upon  upholsterers  and 
barbers.  Poets  and  Artists  don't  want  patronage  ;  what  they  do 
want  is  sympathy.  Patronage  is  narrow,  is  blind  ;  its  eyes  are 
egotistical ;  it  is  prone  to  uphold  mere  talent,  mediocrity.  Sym- 
pathy is  expansive,  keen-sighted,  and  discerns  and  confirms 
genius. 

Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Dante,  Boccaccio,  Petrarca,  men  too  great 
to  be  patronised,  were  the  children  of  republican  Florence.  By 


100 


SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


Democracy,  turbulent  Democracy,  were  they  nursed  into  heroic 
stature.  When  the  basis  of  her  government  was  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people,  when  nobles  had  to  put  away  their  nobility  to  be 
admitted  to  a  share  in  the  administration  of  affairs,  then  it  was 
that  the  bosom  of  Florence  was  fertile  and  wide  enough  to  give 
birth  to  the  men  who  are  the  chief  glory  of  modern  Italy.  Com- 
pare Florence  as  she  then  was,  vigorous,  manly,  erect,  produc- 
tive, with  her  abject,  effeminate,  barren  state  under  the  Medici. 
Or  contrast  the  genius  generated  by  democratic  Florence  with 
that  of  aristocratic  Venice. 

Alfieri  tells,  that  he  betook  himself  to  writing,  because  in  his 
miserable  age  and  land  he  had  no  scope  for  action ;  and  that  he 
remained  single  because  he  would  not  be  a  breeder  of  slaves. 
He  utters  the  despair,  to  passionate  tears,  which  he  felt,  when 
young  and  deeply  moved  by  the  traits  of  greatness  related  by 
Plutarch,  to  find  himself  in  times  and  in  a  country  where  no 
great  thing  could  be  either  said  or  acted.  The  feelings  here  im- 
plied are  the  breath  of  his  dramas.  In  them,  a  clear  nervous 
understanding  gives  rapid  utterance  to  wrath,  pride,  and  impetu- 
ous passion.  Though  great  within  his  sphere,  his  nature  was  not 
ample  and  complex  enough  for  the  highest  tragedy.  In  his  com- 
position there  was  too  much  of  passion  and  too  little  of  high  emo- 
tion. Fully  to  feel  and  perceive  the  awful  and  pathetic  in  human 
conjunctions,  a  deep  fund  of  sentiment  is  needed.  A  condensed 
tale  of  passion  is  not  of  itself  a  Tragedy.  To  dark  feelings,  re- 
solves, deeds,  emotion  must  give  breadth,  and  depth,  and  relief. 
Passion  furnishes  crimes,  but  cannot  furnish  the  kind  and  degree 
of  horror  which  should  accompany  their  commission.  To  give 
Tragedy  the  grand  compass  and  sublime  significance  whereof  it  is 
susceptible,  it  is  not  enough,  that  through  the  storm  is  visible  the 
majestic  figure  of  Justice :  the  blackest  clouds  must  be  fringed 
with  the  light  of  Hope  and  Pity  ;  while  through  them  Religion 
gives  vistas  into  the  Infinite,  Beauty  keeping  watch  to  repel  what 


ALFIER1.  101 


is  partial  or  deformed.  In  Alfieri,  these  great  gifts  are  not  com- 
mensurate  with  his  power  of  intellect  and  passion.  Hence,  like 
the  French  classic  dramatists,  he  is  obliged  to  bind  his  personages 
into  too  narrow  a  circle.  They  have  not  enough  of  moral  liberty. 
They  are  not  swayed  merely,  they  are  tyrannized  over  by  the 
passions.  Hence,  they  want  elasticity  and  color.  They  are  like 
hard  engravings. 

Alfieri  does  not  cut  deep  into  character :  he  gives  a  clean  out- 
line, but  broad  flat  surfaces  without  finish '  of  parts.  It  is  this 
throbbing  movement  in  details,  which  imparts  buoyancy  and 
expression.  Wanting  it,  Alfieri  is  mostly  hard.  The  effect 
of  the  whole  is  imposing,  but  does  not  invite  or  bear  close 
inspection.  Hence,  though  he  is  clear  and  rapid,  and  tells  a 
story  vividly,  his  tragedies  are  not  life-like.  In  Alfieri  there 
is  vigorous  rhetoric,  sustained  vivacity,  fervent  passion;  but 
no  depth  of  sentiment,  no  play  of  a  fleet  rejoicing  imagination, 
nothing  "  visionary,"  and  none  of  the  "  golden  cadence  of  poe- 
try." But  his  heart  was  full  of  nobleness.  He  was  a  proud, 
lofty  man,  severe,  but  truth-loving  and  scornful  of  littleness.  He 
delighted  to  depict  characters  that  are  manly  and  energetic.  He 
makes  them  wrathful  against  tyranny,  hardy,  urgent  for  freedom, 
reclaiming  with  burning  words  the  lost  rights  of  man,  protesting 
fiercely  against  oppression.  There  is  in  Alfieri  a  stern  virility 
that  contrasts  strongly  with  Italian  effeminateness.  An  indignant 
frown  sits  ever  on  his  brow,  as  if  rebuking  the  passivity  of  his 
countrymen.  His  verse  is  swollen  with  wrath.  It  has  the  clan- 
gor of  a  trumpet  that  would  shame  the  soft  piping  of  flutes. 

Above  Alfieri,  far  above  him  and  all  other  Italian  greatness, 
solitary  in  the  earliness  of  his  rise,  ere  the  modern  mind  had 
worked  itself  open,  and  still  as  solitary  amidst  the  after  splendors 
of  Italy's  fruitfulness,  is  Dante.  Take  away  any  other  great 
Poet  or  Artist,  and  in  the  broad  shining  rampart  wherewith  genius 
has  beautified  and  fortified  Italy,  there  would  be  a  mournful 


102  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

chasm.  Take  away  Dante,  and  you  level  the  Citadel  itself,  under 
whose  shelter  the  whole  compact  cincture  has  grown  into  strength 
and  beauty. 

Three  hundred  years  before  Shakspeare,  in  1265,  was  Dante 
born.  His  social  position  secured  to  him  the  best  schooling.  He 
was  taught  and  eagerly  learnt  all  the  crude  knowledge  of  his 
day.  Through  the  precocious  susceptibility  of  the  poetic  tempe- 
rament, he  was  in  love  at  the  age  of  nine  years.  This  love,  as 
will  be  with  such  natures,  was  wrought  into  his  heart,  expanding 
his  young  being  with  beautiful  visions  and  hopes,  and  making 
tuneful  the  poetry  within  him.  It  endured  with  his  life,  and  spi- 
ritualized his  latest  inspirations.  Soberly  he  afterwards  married 
another,  and  was  the  father  of  a  numerous  family.  In  the  stir- 
ring days  of  Guelfs  and  Ghibellines,  he  became  a  public  leader, 
made  a  campaign,  was  for  a  while  one  of  the  chief  magistrates  of 
Florence,  her  ambassador  abroad  more  than  once,  and  at  the  age 
of  thirty-six  closed  his  public  career  in  the  common  Florentine 
way  at  that  period,  namely,  by  exile.  Refusing  to  be  recalled  on 
condition  of  unmanly  concessions,  he  never  again  saw  his  home. 
For  twenty  years  he  was  an  impoverished,  wandering  exile,  and 
in  his  fifty-sixth  year  breathed  his  last  at  Ravenna. 

But  Dante's  life  is  his  poem.  Therein  is  the  spirit  of  the  mighty 
man  incarnated.  The  life  after  earthly  death  is  his  theme.  What 
a  mould  for  the  thoughts  and  sympathies  of  a  poet,  and  what  a 
poet,  to  fill  all  the  chambers  of  such  a  mould !  Man's  whole  na- 
ture claims  interpretation  ;  his  powers,  wants,  vices,  aspirations, 
basenesses,  grandeurs.  The  imagination  of  semi-Christian  Italy 
had  strained  itself  to  bring  before  the  sensuous  mind  of  the  South 
an  image  of  the  future  home  of  the  soul.  The  supermundane 
thoughts,  fears,  hopes  of  his  time,  Dante  condensed  into  one  vast 
picture — a  picture  cut  as  upon  adamant  with  diamond.  To  en- 
rich Hell,  and  Purgatory,  and  Paradise,  he  coined  his  own  soul. 
His  very  body  became  transfigured,  purged  of  its  flesh,  by  the 


DANTE  103 


intensity  of  fiery  thought.  Gaunt,  pale,  stern,  rapt,  his  "  vi- 
sionary" eyes  glaring  under  his  deep  furrowed  brow,  as  he  walked 
the  streets  of  Verona,  he  heard  people  whisper,  "  That  is  he  who 
has  been  down  into  Hell."  Down  into  the  depths  of  his  fervent 
nature  he  had  been,  and  kept  himself  lean  by  brooding  over  his 
passions,  emotions,  hopes,  and  transmuting  the  essence  of  them 
into  everlasting  song. 

Conceive  the  statuesque  grand  imagination  of  Michael  Angelo 
united  to  the  vivid  homely  particularity  of  Defoe,  making  pic- 
tures out  of  materials  drawn  from  a  heart  whose  rapturous  sym- 
pathies ranged  with  Orphean  power  through  the  whole  gamut  of 
human  feeling,  from  the  blackest  hate  up  to  the  brightest  love, 
and  you  will  understand  what  is  meant  by  the  term  Dantesque. 
In  the  epitaph  for  himself,  written  by  Dante  and  inscribed  on  his 
tomb  at  Ravenna,  he  says : — "  I  have  sung,  while  traversing 
them,  the  abode  of  God,  Phlegethon  and  the  foul  pits."  Traversing 
must  be  taken  literally.  Dante  almost  believed  that  he  had  tra- 
versed them,  and  so  does  his  reader  too,  such  is  the  control  the 
Poet  gains  over  the  reader  through  his  burning  intensity  and  gra- 
phic picturesqueness.  Like  the  mark  of  the  fierce  jagged  light- 
ning upon  the  black  night-cloud  are  some  of  his  touches,  as 
awful,  as  fearfully  distinct,  but  not  as  momentary. 

In  the  face  of  the  contrary  judgment  of  such  critics  as  Shelley 
and  Carlyle,  I  concur  in  the  common  opinion,  which  gives  pre- 
ference to  the  Inferno  over  the  Purgatorio  and  Paradiso.  Dante's 
rich  nature  included  the  highest  and  lowest  in  humanity.  With 
the  pure,  the  calm,  the  tender,  the  ethereal,  his  sympathy  was  as 
lively  as  with  the  turbulent,  the  passionate,  the  gross.  But  the 
'hot  contentions  of  the  time,  and  especially  their  effect  upon  him- 
self,— through  them  an  outcast  and  proud  mendicant, — forced  the 
latter  upon  his  heart  as  its  unavoidable  familiars.  All  about  and 
within  him  were  plots,  ambitions,  wraths,  chagrins,  jealousies, 
miseries.  The  times  and  his  own  distresses  darkened  his  mood 


104  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


to  the  lurid  hue  of  Hell.  Moreover,  the  happiness  of  Heaven, 
the  rewards  of  the  spirit,  its  empyreal  joys,  can  be  but  faintly 
pictured  by  visual  corporeal  images,  the  only  ones  the  earthly 
poet  possesses.  The  thwarted  imagination  loses  itself  in  a  vague, 
dazzling,  golden  mist.  On  the  contrary,  the  trials  and  agonies 
of  the  spirit  in  Purgatory  and  Hell,  are  by  such  images  suitably, 
forcibly,  definitely  set  forth.  The  sufferings  of  the  wicked  while 
in  the  flesh  are  thereby  typified.  And  this  suggests  to  me,  that 
one  bent,  as  many  are,  upon  detecting  Allegory  in  Dante,  might 
regard  the  whole  poem  as  one  grand  Allegory,  wherein,  under 
the  guise  of  a  picture  of  the  future  world,  the  poet  has  represented 
the  effect  of  the  feelings  in  this  ;  the  pangs,  for  example,  of  the 
murderer  and  glutton  in  Hell,  being  but  a  portraiture,  poetically 
colored,  of  the  actual  torments  on  earth  of  those  who  commit 
murder  and  gluttony.  Finally,  in  this  there  is  evidence, — and 
is  it  not  conclusive  ? — of  the  superiority  of  the  Book  of  Hell,  that 
in  that  Book  occur  the  two  most  celebrated  passages  in  the  poem, 
— passages,  in  which  with  unsurpassed  felicity  of  diction  and 
versification,  the  pathetic  and  terrible  are  rounded  by  the  spirit 
of  Poetry  into  pictures,  where  simplicity,  expression,  beauty,  com- 
bine to  produce  effects  unrivalled  in  this  kind  in  the  pages  of  Lite- 
rature. I  refer  of  course  to  the  stories  of  Francesca  and  Ugolino. 
Dante's  work  is  untranslateable.  Not  merely  because  the 
style,  form,  and  rhythm  of  every  great  Poem,  being  the  incarna- 
tion of  inspired  thought,  you  cannot  but  lacerate  the  thought  in 
disembodying  it ;  but  because,  moreover,  much  of  the  elements 
of  its  body,  the  words  namely  in  which  the  spirit  made  itself 
visible,  have  passed  away.  To  get  a  faithful  English  transcript 
of  the  great  Florentine,  we  should  need  a  diction  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  moulded  by  a  more  fiery  and  potent  genius  than  Chaucer. 
Not  the  thoughts  solely,  as  in  every  true  poem,  are  so  often  virgin 
thoughts ;  the  words,  too,  many  of  them,  are  virgin  words.  Their 
freshness  and  unworn  vigor  are  there  alone  in  Dante's  Italian. 


DANTE. 


Of  the  modern  intellectual  movement,  Dante  was  the  majestic 
Herald.  In  his  poem,  are  the  mysterious  shadows,  the  glow,  the 
fragrance,  the  young  life-promising  splendors  of  the  dawn.  The 
broad  day  has  its  strength  and  its  blessings  ;  but  it  can  give  only 
a  faint  image  of  the  glories  of  its  birth. 

The  bitter  woes  of  Dante,  hard  and  bitter  to  the  shortening  of 
his  life,  cannot  but  give  a  pang  to  the  reader  whom  his  genius  ha? 
exalted  and  delighted.  He  was  a  life-long  sufferer.  Early  dis- 
appointed in  love  ;  not  blest,  it  would  seem,  in  his  marriage  ; 
foiled  as  a  statesman  ;  misjudged  and  relentlessly  proscribed  by 
the  Florentines,  upon  whom  from  the  pits  of  Hell  his  wrath  wreaked 
itself  in  a  damning  line,  calling  them,  "  Gente  avara,  invida,  e 
superba;"  a  homeless  wanderer ;  a  dependant  at  courts  where, 
though  honored,  he  could  not  be  valued ;  obliged  to  consort  there 
with  buffoons  and  parasites,  he  whose  great  heart  was  full  of 
honor,  and  nobleness,  and  tenderness ;  and  at  last,  all  his  political 
plans  and  hopes  baffled,  closing  his  mournful  days  far,  far  away 
from  home  and  kin,  wasted,  sorrow-stricken,  broken-hearted. 
Most  sharp,  most  cruel  were  his  woes.  Yet  to  them  perhaps  we 
owe  his  poem.  Had  he  not  been  discomfited  and  exiled,  who 
can  say  that  the  mood  or  the  leisure  would  have  been  found  for 
such  poetry  1  His  vicissitudes  and  woes  were  the  soil  to  feed  and 
ripen  his  conceptions.  They  steeped  him  in  dark  experiences, 
intensified  his  passions,  enriching  the  imagination  that  was  tasked 
to  people  Hell  and  Purgatory  ;  while  from  his  own  pains  he  turned 
with  keener  joy  and  lightened  pen  to  the  beatitudes  of  Heaven. 
But  for  his  sorrows,  in  his  soul  would  not  have  been  kindled  so 
fierce  a  fire.  Out  of  the  seething  gloom  of  his  sublime  heart  shot 
forth  forked  lightnings  which  still  glow,  a  perennial  illumination, 
— to  the  eyes  of  men,  a  beauty,  a  marvel,  a  terror.  Poor  indeed 
he  was  in  purse  ;  but  what  wealth  had  he  not  in  his  bosom  !  True, 
he  was  a  father  parted  from  his  children,  a  proud  warm  man, 
eating  the  bread  of  cold  strangers  ;  but  had  he  not  his  genius  and 
6* 


106  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


its  bounding  offspring  for  company,  and  would  not  a  day  of  such 
heavenly  labor  as  his  outweigh  a  month,  aye,  a  year  of  crushed 
pride  ?  What  though  by  the  world  he  was  misused,  received 
from  it  little,  his  own  even  wrested  from  him  ;  was  he  not  the 
giver,  the  conscious  giver,  to  the  world  of  riches  fineless  ?  Not 
six  men,  since  men  were,  have  been  blest  with  such  a  power  of 
giving. 

PISA,  February,  1843. 

Here  is  a  wide  chasm  of  time.  A  goodly  space  of  ground,  too, 
has  been  gone  over.  Without  much  stretching,  a  volume  might 
be  put  in  between  this  date  and  the  last.  That  trouble,  however, 
shall  be  spared  the  writer  and  the  reader.  Let  us  see  whether  in 
a  few  pages  we  cannot  whisk  ourselves  through  Switzerland  into 
Germany,  and  back  to  Italy. 

Starting  northward  from  Florence,  in  the  afternoon  of  June  7th, 
1842,  in  less  than  an  hour  we  were  among  the  Appenines,  over 
whose  barren,  billowy  surface  we  rolled  on  a  good  road  to  within 
a  few  miles  of  Bologna,  where  we  arrived  the  next  day  at  three. 

The  Italian  intellect  is  quick  at  expedients.  With  freedom  the 
Italians  would  be  eminently  practical.  Free  people  are  always 
practical ;  hence,  the  superiority  of  the  English  and  Americans 
in  the  useful  and  commodious.  From  necessity  and  self-defence, 
the  acute  Italians  are  adepts  in  the  art  of  deception.  Hypocrisy 
they  are  taught  by  their  masters,  temporal  and  spiritual ;  a  sub- 
stitution of  the  semblance  for  the  substance  being  the  foundation 
of  civil  and  religious  rule  in  Italy. 

The  fictions  of  the  Catholic  Church  are  mostly  unsuitable  to 
the  Arts.  Martyrs  and  emaciated  anchorites  cannot  be  subjected 
to  the  laws  of  beauty.  The  Greek  divinities  were  incarnations 
of  powers,  qualities,  truths,  which,  though  not  the  deepest,  were 
shaped  by  beauty.  The  Romish  saints,  with  their  miracles  and 
macerations,  want  capability  of  beauty  together  with  dignity  and 


LEONARDO  DA  VINCI  107 

respectability,  and  are  thence  doubly  unfit  for  the  handling  of 
Art.  The  highest  genius  cannot  make  them  thoroughly  effective. 
In  the  gallery  of  Bologna  one  is  often  repelled  even  from  the  best 
execution  by  the  offensiveness  of  the  subject.  The  geniality  of 
Art  is  shown  as  much  in  the  selection  of  subjects  as  in  the  treat- 
ment. One  tires  of  heavy  virgins  that  would  be  thought  to  float, 
and  old  men  on  their  knees  to  them,  trying  to  look  extasles ;  and 
more  still,  of  the  distortions  of  mental  and  bodily  agony. 

Leaving  Bologna  at  noon,  by  Modena  and  Reggio,  we  arrived 
at  Parma  after  dusk,  through  a  country,  level,  fertile  and  well 
tilled.  Along  the  road  vines  hung  in  graceful  festoons  from  tree 
to  tree,  and  peasants  were  gathering  mulberry  leaves  for  silk- 
worms. 

After  running  to  the  Gallery,  just  to  have  a  momentary  look 
at  the  two  famous  Correggios,  we  started  from  Parma  at  nine  in 
the  morning,  and  coming  on  rapidly  through  Piacenza  and  Lodi, 
entered  Milan  just  before  dark. 

By  the  grandeur  of  the  Cathedral  we  were  even  more  moved 
than  when  we  first  beheld  it.  Then  we  explored  its  populous 
roof;  now  we  descended  into  its  vaults,  peopled  too  with  statues 
and  busts,  some  of  silver  to  the  value  of  more  than  a  million  of 
francs.  About  the  tomb  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo  there  is  gold 
and  silver  to  the  amount  of  four  million  francs.  Guard  it  well, 
Priests.  'Twill  be  a  treasure  on  that  day,  which  will  come, 
when  this  people's  deep,  smothered  cry  shall  end  at  last  in  a  tri- 
umphant shout.  From  the  Cathedral  we  betook  ourselves  to  the 
barn-like  place,  which  contains  Leonardo  da  Vinci's  fresco  of  the 
Last  Supper.  Here  is  the  inspiration  of  genius.  To  produce 
that  head  of  Jesus,  what  a  conception  must  have  been  long  nursed 
in  the  great  painter's  brain,  and  with  what  intense  force  of  will 
must  he  have  embodied  it,  to  stamp  upon  human  features  such 
pre-eminence,  such  benignity,  such  majesty !  With  this,  the 
vigor  and  variety  in  the  superb  heads  of  the  apostles,  the  grace 


108  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 


and  spirit  of  the  grouping,  bring  the  scene  before  you  with  such 
speaking  presence,  that  one  sees  how  pictures  can  strengthen  and 
keep  alive  religious  belief.  By  its  vivid  reality,  its  beauty  and 
character,  this  sublime  picture  proclaims  the  truth  of  what  it 
sets  forth,  and  takes  the  mind  captive  with  its  power  and  its 
fascination. 

As  we  approached  Como,  we  enjoyed  much  the  contact  again 
with  mountains.  After  an  early  breakfast,  June  12th,  we  were 
on  board  the  steamboat  at  seven,  to  explore  the  beautiful  lake. 
At  nine,  about  midway,  we  landed,  in  order  to  see  and  have  the 
views  from  the  Villas  Serbelloni,  Melzi,  and  Somariva. 

The  villa  Somariva  has  some  fine  sculpture  by  Thorwaldsen 
and  Canova,  and  a  number  of  Italian  and  French  pictures.  The 
French  Ideal  is  a  medium  of  the  human  form  taken  from  mea- 
surement of  the  antique.  The  genuine  Ideal  is  attainable  only 
through  an  earnest  loving  study  of  nature,  directed  by  a  sure  eye 
and  a  warm  sense  of  the  beautiful.  Modern  French  art  has  an 
eccentric  look ;  whereas,  Art  should  always  be  concentric,  seek- 
ing, that  is,  the  centre  of  all  forms  and  expressions,  the  concen- 
tration into  an  individual  of  the  best  qualities  of  many.  Hence, 
high  Art  looks  always  tranquil  and  modest.  French  Art  is  apt 
to  have  an  excited,  conceited  air. 

Stopping  as  we  did  where  the  Lake  branches,  we  had  followed 
the  advice  of  a  Milanese  gentleman,  who  accosted  us  in  the  boat. 
Had  we  gone  on,  we  should  not  have  made  by  a  good  deal  so 
much  of  our  morning ;  for  the  upper  end  of  the  lake  has  less 
interest  and  beauty  than  the  middle.  On  re-embarking,  as  the 
boat  returned,  between  one  and  two,  we  renewed  conversation 
with  the  friendly  giver  of  such  good  counsel.  He  had  spent  his 
Sunday  in  a  passive  enjoyment  of  the  rich  soft  beauties  of  the 
Lake.  This  was  the  easy  and  highest  form  of  worship  for  a 
nature  like  his.  He  was  a  man  past  forty,  of  rather  more  lhan 
middle  stature,  with  a  well  rnade;  somewhat  stout  frame,  inclined 


AN  EPICUREAN.  109 


to  fullness.  His  complexion  was  of  that  rich  creamy  tint,  seen 
oftener  in  Italy  than  elsewhere,  with  blue-black  hair  and  smooth 
whiskers ;  a  handsome  man,  with  regular,  bold  features,  that 
didn't  look  bold,  from  the  gentleness  of  his  expression  ;  for  his 
graceful  mouth  and  large  white  teeth  were  formed  for  smiling, 
and  his  black  eyes  were  not  those  glowing  Italian  orbs,  in  whose 
depths  so  much  of  good  or  evil  lies  sleeping, — you  know  not 
which, — they  were  shallow,  handsome,  happy  eyes.  He  ordered 
coffee,  and  pressed  me  to  take  a  cup.  After  this,  he  offered  me 
a  cigar  from  his  case,  and  upon  my  declining  that  too,  he  seemed 
to  conclude  that  I  lived  a  very  poor  life.  For  himself,  he  let  not 
an  hour  in  the  day  go  by,  he  said,  without  regaling  his  body  with 
some  or  other  fragrant  stimulant.  He  urged  us,  should  we  revisit 
Milan,  to  stop  at  the  hotel  where  he  lodged,  whose  cuisine  and 
wines  he  praised  with  thankful  animation.  Yet,  he  was  not  one 
of  those  who  spend  their  mornings  in  expectation  of  their  dinner. 
He  was  too  subtle  an  epicurean  for  such  a  dead  diurnal  vacuity. 
Though  lys  dinner  was  the  chief  circumstance  of  his  being,  still, 
after  his  mode,  he  valued  time,  and  knew  how  to  bridge  over  the 
wide  gulfs  between  meals  upon  pillars  constructed  of  minor  enjoy- 
ments,  including  among  them  easy  acts  of  kindness  and  courtesy. 

We  got  back  to  Como  at  four,  and  started  immediately  for 
Lugano,  our  resting-place  that  night.  The  Lake  of  Lugano 
pleased  us  even  more  than  that  of  Como.  There  is  greiter 
variety  in  the  forms  of  the  mountains.  These  fairy  Lakes,  uniting 
Italy  to  Switzerland,  combine  the  beauties  of  both. 

As  you  advance  from  Lugano,  the  mountains  close  in  upon  you, 
the  scenery  growing  bolder  and  grander.  Through  an  opening  not 
far  from  Lugano,  we  had  a  clear  distant  view  down  into  Lake 
Maggiore,  and  then  we  came  upon  the  picturesque  old  town  of 
Belinzona,  flanked  with  turrets,  the  turrets  flanked  with  moun. 
tains.  Towards  evening  we  approached  the  southern  sublimity 
of  this  pass,  a  rent  in  the  mountain  nearly  a  mile  long,  where  the 


110  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

river  Ticino, — which  till  now  had  this  deep  gorge  all  to  himself,—- 
has  been  forced  by  the  engineer  to  make  room  for  a  road,  the 
angry,  headlong  torrent  being  thrice  crossed  and  recrossed  in  the 
course  of  the  mils.  As  we  emerged  from  this  magnificent  pas- 
sage, the  mountains  stretched  up  into  Swiss  stature,  their  sides 
clothed  with  firs  as  with  a  plumage.  'Twas  dark  when  we  drove 
into  Airolo,  at  the  foot  of  the  St.  Gothard,  where  good  beds 
awaited  us. 

First  through  green  fields  and  firs,  then  rugged  wastes,  and 
finally,  torrents,  snow,  and  bare  rock,  up,  up,  up  we  went  for  three 
or  four  hours,  the  steep  road  making  its  way  zigzag  on  terraces. 
The  summit  of  the  pass,  a  scene  of  cold  dreary  sterility,  is  a  great 
geographical  centre ;  for  within  a  circuit  of  ten  miles  are  the 
sources  of  four  of  the  chief  rivers  of  Europe,  the  Rhine,  the 
Rhone,  the  Reuss,  and  the  Ticino. 

Now  we  set  off  in  a  race  with  the  Reuss,  who  bounds  five 
thousand  feet  down  the  mountain  in  a  series  of  cataracts,  to  rush 
into  the  Lake  of  the  Four  Cantons  at  Fluellen.  We  crossed  the 
Devil's  Bridge,  the  northern  sublimity  of  the  St.  Gothard  pass ; 
and  the  Pfajfensprung,  so  called  from  the  tradition  of  a  monk  hav- 
ing leapt  from  rock  to  rock,  across  the  torrent,  with  a  maiden  in 
his  arms.  That's  a  fine  tradition.  One  cannot  but  have  a 
kind  of  respect  for  the  bold  amorous  monk.  He  deserved  the 
maiden — better  than  any  other  monk.  The  beautiful  maiden, — 
for  beautiful  she  could  not  but  be,  to  inspire  a  feat  so  daring, — 
must  have  been  still  and  passive  in  the  arms  of  her  monastic 
Hercules ;  for  had  she  made  herself  heavy  by  scratching  and 
kicking,  whilst  in  mid  air  over  that  fearful  chasm,  I  fancy  the 
tradition  would  have  been  more  tragical.  Never  was  maiden 
more  honorably  won — by  a  monk.  We  passed  through  Altdorf, 
TelPs  Altdorf,  and  taking  the  steamboat  at  Fluellen,  traversed 
under  a  serene  sky  the  Lake  of  the  Four  Cantons,  with  its  sublime 
scenery,  landing  in  Lucerne  after  sun-down.  Thus,  from  dawn  to 


SCENERY.  Ill 


twilight  we  had  crossed  one  of  the  grand  Alpine  passes,  and  the 
whole  length  of  the  most  magnificent  Lake  in  Europe.  This  was 
a  rich  day. 

The  next  morning,  before  starting  for  Thun,  we  took  time  to 
walk  a  few  steps  beyond  one  of  the  gates  to  see  the  colossal  lion, 
cut  in  the  side  of  a  rock,  as  designed  by  Thorwaldsen,  in  com- 
memoration of  the  faithful  Swiss,  who  fell  defending  the  royal 
family  of  France  in  the  Tuileries  in  1792.  By  the  Emmendale 
we  reached  Thun  the  following  day.  Here,  in  this  beautiful 
portal  to  the  sublime  scenery  of  the  Bernese  Alps,  we  sat  our- 
selves down  in  quiet  lodgings,  by  the  water's  edge,  near  where 
the  river  issues  from  the  lake. 

In  the  grandeurs,  sublimities,  movements  of  Nature  in  Switzer- 
land, the  creative  energy  reveals  itself  in  doings  and  voices  that 
astound  the  imagination.  Nature  seems  here  more  than  else- 
where vivified  by  the  breath  of  God.  Those  gigantic  piles  of 
riven  rock,  fixed  in  sublime  ruggedness,  proclaim  with  unwonted 
emphasis,  the  awful  hand  that  arrested  their  upheaving.  Those 
terrific  fields  of  eternal  ice,  the  nourishing  mothers  of  great 
rivers,  tempt  the  imagination  towards  the  mysterious  source  of 
Nature's  processes.  The  common  forms  and  elements  of  our 
globe  are  here  exaggerated.  Hills  and  valleys  become  moun- 
tains and  gorges ;  winter  dwells  on  the  peaks  throughout  sum- 
mer ;  streams  are  obliged  to  be  torrents.  Walking  in  a  meadow, 
you  come  suddenly  on  a  streamlet,  that  looks  in  the  grass  like  a 
transparent  serpent  at  full  speed,  it  runs  with  such  startling  velo- 
city, as  though  it  had  a  momentous  mysterious  mission.  The 
Rivers  rush  out  of  the  Lakes,  as  if  they  had  twice  the  work  to  do 
of  other  rivers. 

At  the  end  of  a  month,  we  quitted  Thun,  about  the  middle  of 
July,  to  return,  for  the  rest  of  the  summer,  to  the  water-cure 
establishment  at  Boppart.  'Twould  have  been  wiser  had  we 
gone  to  GraefTenberg.  Prie«5nilz  understands  his  own  discovery 


112  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

better  than  any  one  else,  and  inspires  his  own  patients  with  a 
deeper  confidence.  At  Graeffenberg,  moreover,  there  is  moun- 
tain air  and  the  coldest  water.  Through  the  secluded  Miinster 
•valley  we  reached  Basle,  whence  by  railroad,  post,  and  steamboat 
we  rapidly  descended  the  Rhine  to  Boppart.  The  Rhine  suffers 
at  first  by  being  seen  when  one's  vision  has  just  been  enlarged  and 
sublimated  by  Switzerland. 

The  left,  the  wooded,  shore  of  the  Rhine  was  golden  with  au- 
tumnal foliage,  the  right  pale  with  fading  vineyards,  when  in  ihe 
middle  of  October  we  again  turned  our  faces  southward.  'Twas 
eleven  o'clock,  a  chilly  moonlight  night,  when,  at  the  gate  of 
Frankfort,  the  officer  questioned  us,  "  Are  you  the  Duke  ?  " — 
"  No,  I  am  an  American." — "  Oh,  then,"  to  the  postillion,  "  drive 
on." 

Our  former  admiration  of  Dannecker's  statue  of  Ariadne  was 
somewhat  qualified,  for  since  we  first  saw  it,  our  eyes  had  been 
strengthened  in  Italy.  The  composition  is  admirable,  the  attitude 
graceful ;  but  the  limbs  want  rounding  and  expressive  finish,  and 
the  head  is  stiff,  as  mimicry  of  the  antique  always  is. 

It  being  too  late  to  re-enter  Italy  by  the  Splugen  pass,  we  bent 
our  course  more  eastward  towards  Munich  and  the  Tyrol,  through 
the  fine  old  German  towns  of  Wiirzburg  and  Augsburg.  We 
might  have  been  present  at  the  festival  held  to  celebrate  the  com- 
pletion of  the  Walhatta,  a  magnificent  temple  on  the  shore  of  the 
Danube,  erected  by  the  King  of  Bavaria,  in  honor  of  German 
worth  and  genius,  to  be  adorned  with  the  statues  and  busts  of 
Germany's  great  men,  from  Arminius  to  Schiller.  When  I  learnt 
afterwards  that  from  this  temple  Luther  is  to  be  excluded,  I  was 
glad  that  we  had  not  gone  out  of  our  way  to  see  it.  Figure  to 
yourself  the  Apollo  of  the  Vatican  with  the  head  purposely  taken 
off,  or  the  Cathedral  of  Strasburg  with  the  spire  demolished,  and 
you  will  have  some  notion  of  the  grossness  of  this  outrage.  A 
German  Pantheon  without  Luther !  The  grandest  national  temple 


MUNICH;  THE  TYROL.  113 

that  Architecture  could  devise,  and  sculpture  adorn  with  the  effi- 
gies of  German  greatness,  yet  left  bare  of  that  of  Luther,  could 
never  be  but  a  fragment.  The  impertinence  of  this  petty,  tran- 
sitory King,  to  try  to  put  an  affront  on  the  mighty,  undying  Sove- 
reign, Luther ! 

In  Munich  there  is  a  noble  collection  of  pictures ;  but  the  city, 
with  its  fresh  new  palaces,  and  churches,  and  theatres,  has  a  made 
up  look.  It  seems  the  work  of  Dilettantism :  it  is  not  a  warm 
growth  out  of  the  wants  and  aspirations  of  the  time.  It  is  as  if 
it  had  been  said:  Architecture  and  Painting  are  fine  things; 
therefore  we  will  have  them.  The  King  of  Bavaria,  the  builder 
and  collector  of  all  this,  has  been  a  great  "  Patron  "  of  the  Arts. 
Latterly  his  patronage  is  said  to  have  taken  another  direction,  and 
he  has  become  a  patron  of  Religion.  The  one  is  as  proper  a 
subject  for  patronage  as  the  other. 

We  entered  the  Tyrol  on  the  22d  of  October,  after  a  light  fall 
of  snow,  which  weighed  just  enough  on  the  fir  trees  to  add  a  grace 
to  their  shapes,  and  on  their  dark  green  foliage  sparkled  in  the 
sun,  like  a  transparent  silver  canopy.  Tyrolese  scenery  we  saw 
in  its  most  picturesque  aspect.  Our  road  went  through  Innspruck, 
the  Capital  of  the  Tyrol,  lying  in  a  capacious  valley  encompassed 
by  mountains ;  thence  over  the  Bremer  through  Botzen,  historical 
Trent,  and  Roveredo.  Coming  down  from  the  chilly  mountains, 
the  sun  of  Italy  was  luxurious.  What  a  fascination  there  is  in 
this  warm  beautiful  land  ! 

We  stopped  half  a  day  at  Verona.  Dante  and  Shakspeare 
have  both  been  here ;  Dante  in  person,  as  guest  of  the  Scaligers, 
Shakspeare  in  Juliet,  that  resplendent  diamond  exhibited  by  the 
lightning  of  a  tropical  night-storm.  Just  out  of  the  town  they 
show  a  huge,  rough,  open  stone  coffer,  as  Juliet's  tomb ;  and  in 
one  of  the  principal  streets,  our  cicerone  pointed  to  a  house  which 
he  said  was  that  of  the  Capulets.  Preferring  to  believe,  we  made 
no  further  inquiries.  So,  we  have  seen  Juliet's  tomb,  and  the 


114  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

house  of  the  Capulets.  We  saw  too  the  palace  of  the  Scaligers, 
wherein,  at  the  table  of  Can-grande,  Dante  hurled  at  his  host  that 
celebrated  sarcasm.  One  can  readily  figure  the  sublime,  thought- 
ful, sorrowful  man,  sitting  silent  as  was  his  wont,  scornful  of  the 
levities  and  follies  of  speech  around  him,  and  not  keeping  his  scorn 
out  of  his  great  countenance,  when,  after  some  coarse  sally  from 
a  favorite  buffoon,  the  prince,  turning  to  the  poet,  said,  "  I  wonder 
that  this  man,  who  is  a  fool,  can  make  himself  so  agreeable  to  us 
all,  while  you,  who  are  called  wise,  have  not  been  able  to  do  so." 
— "  You  would  not  wonder,"  answered  Dante,  "  if  you  knew 
that  friendship  comes  of  similarity  of  habits  and  sympathy  of 
souls." 

At  Verona  we  turned  from  our  southward  course,  and  went  off 
due  east  to  Venice,  without  halting  in  Vicensa  and  Padua,  that 
lay  in  our  path.  We  rowed  in  Gondolas,  saw  Titian's  picture  of 
the  Assumption,  walked  over  the  Rialto,  inspected  the  Arsenal, 
stood  near  the  Bridge  of  Sighs,  took  chocolate  in  the  place  of  St. 
Mark,  and  rowed  back  in  the  Lagune  to  Mestre,  whence  by  Padua 
and  Rovigo  we  came  to  Ferrara.  From  the  people  a  traveller  has 
to  do  witi  on  the  highways  of  Europe,  he  gets  much  of  the 
caricature  of  what  in  the  world  is  called  politeness,  namely,  a 
smooth  lie  varnished. 

A  scarcity  of  post-horses  detained  us  a  day  in  Ferrara,  and  the 
bridge  over  the  Po  having  been  swept  away  by  late  floods,  we  had 
to  make  a  circuit  to  reach  Bologna.  The  Manuscripts  of  Tasso 
and  Ariosto  in  the  Library,  Ariosto's  house  and  Tasso's  prison, 
beguiled  the  time  in  the  desolate  old  town  of  Ferrara. 

Off  the  beaten  highways,  from  which  the  floods  forced  us,  the 
people  looked  fresh  and  innocent.  Wherever  strangers  throng, 
there  knavery  thrives.  Hence,  on  the  great  routes  of  Europe, 
the  traveller  is  constantly  vexed  and  soured  by  impositions,  from 
the  most  brazen  to  the  most  subtle.  From  the  obsequious  inn- 
keeper to  the  coarse  postillion,  he  is  the  victim  of  the  whole  class 


POWERS'S  SLAVE  115 


with  whom  he  has  to  deal.  Yet  he  would  be  very  unjust  who 
should  thence  infer  that  cheating  and  lying  are  habitual  with  the 
people  among  whom  by  these  classes  he  is  so  often  plagued  and 
wronged.  The  country  between  Ferrara  and  Bologna  overflows 
with  population.  Under  this  warm  sun,  the  fertile  valley  of 
the  Po  yields  meat,  drink  and  clothing  all  at  once ;  silk,  vine 
and  grain  growing  in  plenteous  crops  at  the  same  time  in  one 
field. 

At  Florence  we  found  Powers  with  his  model  of  the  Greek 
Slave  nearly  finished.  What  easy  power  there  is  in  genius  ! 
Here  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  tasks  of  sculpture, — a  nude  fe- 
male figure, — conceived  and  executed  with  a  perfectness  that 
completely  conceals  all  the  labor  of  thought  and  hand  bestowed 
upon  it.  Most  worthy  to  be  a  daughter  of  the  Eve,  this  figure  is 
altogether  of  another  type,  slender  and  maidenly.  Like  Eve,  it 
is  a  revelation  of  the  symmetry,  the  inexhaustible  grace,  the  in- 
finite power  and  beauty  of  the  human  form.  What  an  attitude, 
— how  naturally  brought  about, — what  a  wonderful  management 
of  the  resources  of  such  limbs  for  expression  !  It  is  ft  figure 

"  To  radiate  beauty  everlastingly." 

From  it  one  learns  what  a  marvellous  work  is  the  human  body 
One  feels  himself  elevated  and  purified,  while  contemplating  a 
creation  so  touching  and  beautiful.  Of  this  statue  a  distinguished 
American  clergyman,  whom  we  had  the  pleasure  to  meet  in  Italy, 
said,  that  were  a  hundred  libertines  to  collect  round  it,  attracted 
by  its  nudity,  they  would  stand  abashed  and  rebuked  in  its 
presence. 

This  is  the  fourth  ideal  female  head  that  Powers  has  produced, 
and  yet  there  is  not  between  any  two  of  them  the  slightest  re- 
semblance. Each  one  is  a  fresh  independent  creation.  Not  to 
imitate  himself  evinces  in  a  sculptor  even  a  still  greater  depth  of 


116  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

resource  than  not  to  imitate  the  antique.  It  is  proof  of  a  mastery 
over  the  human  countenance.  Its  elements  and  constituents 
Powers  carries  in  his  brain.  This  is  the  genuine  creative 
energy. 

Greenough  was  absent  in  America,  and  his  studio  was  closed. 
Clevinger  was  at  work  at  the  model  of  his  Indian,  his  first  ideal 
effort.* 

Pisa,  famous  for  its  leaning  tower  and  its  University,  which  has 
able  professors,  is,  for  one  who  wants  quiet,  a  pleasant  place  to 
spend  three  months  of  winter.  The  Arno,  flowing  through  it 
from  east  to  west,  for  nearly  a  mile  in  a  gentle  curve,  cuts 
the  town  into  two  parts,  united  by  three  bridges.  Our  front 
windows  look  out  upon  the  river  and  its  western  bridge,  and  from 
one  in  the  rear  there  is  a  view  of  the  long  jagged  outline  of  the 
distant  Appenines  running  towards  Genoa,  the  highest  peaks 
covered  with  snow.  Our  walks  along  the  Lung-Arno  carry  us 
daily  by  the  palace  of  Byron,  the  memory  of  whom  does  not  seem 
to  be  much  cherished  by  the  Italians  here. 

On  the  22d  of  February  we  found  ourselves  in  lively,  dirty, 
commercial  Leghorn,  which  vulgar  cacophonous  dissyllable  is  in- 
tended to  be  a  rendering  into  English  of  the  melodious  Italian 
name  of  this  town,  which  is  Livorno.  That  the  Mediterranean 
well  deserves  its  reputation  of  being  a  very  ugly  sea  in  winter 
we  had  sickening  proof.  In  a  stout  French  steamboat  we  were 
two  nights  and  a  day,  instead  of  one  night,  in  getting  from  Leg- 
horn to  Civita  Vecchia. 

FRIDAY,  February  24th,  1843. 

We  cast  anchor  in  the  small  harbor  of  Civita  Vecchia  at  seven, 

*  The  last  time  I  saw  Clevinger,  he  was  standing  before  this  work,  with 
his  frank,  manly  countenance  animated  by  the  pleasure  and  intentness  of 
the  labor.  In  the  budding  of  his  fame,  he -was  cut  off,  a  loss  to  his  family, 
his  friends,  his  country. 


APPROACH  TO  ROME.  117 

landed  at  eight,  and  at  ten  set  off  for  Rome.  For  several  miles 
the  road  ran  along  the  sea  shore,  through  a  desolate  but  not  barren 
country,  with  scarce  a  sign  of  population.  A  few  massive  frag- 
ments of  a  bridge  from  the  hands  of  the  Romans,  gave  a  sudden 
interest  to  the  deserted  region,  and  kept  our  minds  awake  until 
three  o'clock,  when,  still  eleven  miles  distant  from  Rome,  we 
came  in  sight  of  St.  Peter's,  which  drew  us  towards  it  with  such 
force,  that  we  wondered  at  the  languor  of  the  postillion,  who 
drove  his  dull  hacks  as  if  at  the  end  of  our  journey  there  were 
nothing  but  a  supper  and  a  snug  hostelrie.  We  soon  lost  sight 
of  St.  Peter's.  The  fields,— and  this  is  not  strictly  part  of  the 
Campagna, — still  looked  dreary  and  abandoned.  Up  to  the  very 
walls  of  the  ancient  mistress  of  the  world,  and  the  present 
spiritual  mistress  of  many  millions  more  than  the  Caesars  ever 
swayed,  the  land  seems  as  if  it  had  long  lain  under  a  maledic- 
tion. At  last,  towards  sundown,  after  an  ascent,  whence  we 
overlooked  the  "  Eternal  City,"  the  Cupola  of  St.  Peter's  filled 
our  eyes  of  a  sudden,  and  seemingly  within  a  stone's  throw  of 
us.  Descending  again,  we  entered  Rome  by  a  gate  near  the 
Church,  and,  escorted  by  a  horseman,  whose  casque  led  one  to 
imagine  him  a  mimic  knight  of  Pharsalia,  we  drove  close  by  the 
gigantic  colonnade  that  encloses  the  court  of  St.  Peter's,  crossed 
the  Tiber  by  the  Bridge  of  Adrian,  and  after  several  turns  through 
narrow  streets,  drove  up  to  the  temple  of  Marcus  Aurelius  An- 
toninus, with  its  front  of  fluted  marble  columns,  under  which  we 
passed  into  the  interior  and  there  halted.  JTwas  the  Custom 
House,  whence  a  dollar  having  quickly  obtained  for  us  release 
from  the  delay  and  vexation  of  search,  we  drove  at  dusk  through 
the  Corso  to  the  Hotel  de  ?  Europe  in  the  Piazza  di  Spagna.  Here 
we  spent  the  evening  in  planning,  and  in  trying  to  think  ourselves 
into  a  full  consciousness  that  we  were  in  Rome. 

SATURDAY,  Feb.  25th. 

Before  breakfast  I  took  my  first  walk  in  Rome  up  the  broad 


118  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

stairway  from  the  Piazza  di  Spagna  to  the  Pincian  Hill ;  but  the 
atmosphere  was  hazy.  Later,  I  walked  down  the  Corso,  whose 
Palaces  look  wealth  and  luxury.  A  Palace  without  political 
power,  what  is  it  but  a  gilded  Prison,  where  refined  sensuality 
strives  to  beguile  the  intellect  in  its  servitude !  A  scarlet  gilt 
coach  rolled  by,  with  gorgeous  trappings  and  three  footmen  in 
flaunting  liveries  crowded  together  on  the  foot-board  behind  ;  an 
exhibition,  which  shows  manhood  most  disgustingly  bemasked, 
and  is  an  unchristian  ostentation  of  the  mastery  of  man  over  man. 
'Twas  the  coach  of  a  Cardinal  !  of  one  who  assumes  to  be  the 
pre-elect  interpreter  of  the  invisible  God !  of  one  whom  millions 
believe  to  be  among  the  most  divinely-enlightened  expositors  of  the 
self-denying  Jesus'  words !  Truly,  God  rights  the  wrong  in  our 
little  world  by  general  laws  and  stoops  not  to  an  individual ;  else, 
it  were  neither  unreasonable  nor  profane  to  expect  that  the  sleek 
horses  of  this  silken-robed  priest  might  refuse  to  carry  him  to  the 
altar,  raised  to  him,  who  declared  it  to  be  hard  for  a  rich  man  to 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Possibly  he  is  self-deluded ; 
for  so  great  is  the  power  of  man  upon  man,  that  the  world-wide 
and  time-heaped  belief  in  his  sanctity  may  have  persuaded  even 
himself,  that  between  his  life  and  his  doctrine  there  is  no  wide- 
gaping  inconsistency.  Some  too,  being  stronger  in  religious 
sentiment  than  in  intellect,  are  blinded,  under  the  bandage  o*' 
custom,  to  the  monstrous  imposture.  But  many  a  one,  having 
capacity  for  and  opportunities  of  culture,  must  be  the  conscious 
worshipper  of  ambition  and  the  knowing  denier  of  the  Holy,  and 
nis  life  therefore — what  I  leave  each  reader  to  name  for  himself. 
This  is  a  gala-day  in  Rome,  being  one  of  the  last  of  the  Car- 
nival.  At  two  we  drove  to  the  Corso,  where  we  fell  into  a  double 
file  of  carriages  going  in  opposite  directions.  The  Corso  is  the 
principal  street  of  modern  Rome,  about  a  mile  long,  proud  with 
palaces,  columns,  and  open  squares.  Out  of  most  of  the  nume- 
rous windows  streamed  long  crimson  silk  hangings.  At  short 


THE  FORUM.  119 


intervals  were  dragoons  as  a  mounted  police.  The  street  was 
thronged  with  people,  many  in  masks  and  fantastic  costumes ; 
the  windows  were  crowded  with  gaily  dressed  spectators.  But 
the  chief  source  of  animation  to  the  gay  scene,  is  the  practice  of 
throwing  bonbons  and  boquets  from  carriage  to  carriage,  or  in 
or  out  of  the  windows,  or  from  or  at  the  pedestrians,  a  general 
interchange  in  short  of  missile  greetings.  Most  of  the  bonbons 
are  of  clay,  or  paste  and  flowers,  and  hence  can  be  dealt  out  pro- 
fusely without  much  cost.  You  assail  whom  you  please,  and 
wire  masks  are  worn  by  those  who  are  careful  of  their  eyes. 
'Tis  an  occasion  when  the  adult  lay  aside  their  maturity  and  put 
on  childhood  again,  and,  as  among  children,  there  is  the  fullest 
freedom  and  equality.  We  knew  not  a  soul  in  the  throng,  and 
dealt  our  handfuls  of  powdered  pills  into  carriages  and  windows, 
and  received  them  in  turn,  with  as  much  glee  as  if  we  had  been 
harlequins  in  a  pantomime.  We  came  in  towards  six. 

SUNDAY,  Feb.  26th. 

We  drove  first  to  the  Forum.  Here  then  had  been  the  centre 
of  the  Roman  world !  There  before  you  is  a  door  of  the  ancient 
Capitol !  A  few  straggling  columns  and  arches  stand  up  still 
manfully  against  time.  You  think  'tis  something  to  find  your- 
self face  to  face  with  what  has  heard  the  voice  of  Cicero  and  the 
Gracchi,  to  shake  hands,  as  it  were,  across  a  gulf  of  twenty  cen- 
turies, with  the  cotemporaries  of  the  Scipios ;  when  you  learn 
that  all  that  you  behold  are  relics  of  the  Imperial  epoch.  They 
showed  us  too  the  walls  and  two  columns  of  a  temple  of  Romulus 
with  a  door  of  well- wrought  bronze.  Although  one  likes  to  be- 
lieve on  such  occasions,  we  had  to  turn  incredulous  from  these, 
and  settled  our  minds  again  into  positive  faith  before  the  arch  of 
Titus,  which  stands  at  the  end  of  the  Forum  opposite  the  Capitol, 
and  is  enriched  with  sculpture  illustrating  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  in  commemoration  of  which  it  was  erected  to  the 


120  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

Emperor  Titus.  Passing  under  this,  which  Jews  to  this  day 
will  not  do,  we  drove  down  the  Via  Sacra  to  the  Colosseum,  near 
which  is  the  arch  of  Constantine.  Conceive  of  an  elliptical 
Theatre  with  stone  seats  all  round  rising  row  back  of  row,  to 
hold  one  hundred  thousand  spectators,  who  came  in  and  out  with- 
out  delay  or  confusion  through  seventy  inlets.  Here  in  this  vast 
arena  may  be  said  to  have  been  represented  the  conflict  between 
paganism  and  Christianity.  Here  were  slaughtered  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  Christians,  thrown  to  wild  beasts  as  the  most  grateful 
spectacle  to  the  Roman  populace.  The  arena  itself  is  now  a 
Christian  temple,  sanctified  by  the  blood  of  the  faith-sustained 
victims. 

From  the  Colosseum  we  went  to  the  Church  of  St.  John  of  the 
Lateran,  where,  if  what  they  tell  you  were  true,  are  preserved 
the  heads  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul.  We  were  shown  too  what 
the  exhibiting  priest  said  is  the  table  on  which  Jesus  took  the  last 
supper  with  the  apostles.  This  with  other  relics  is  declared  to 
have  been  brought  from  Jerusalem  by  Helen,  the  mother  of  Con- 
stantine. This  is  the  oldest  church  in  Europe,  and  is  called  the 
mother  of  all  others. 

In  the  afternoon  we  drove  to  St.  Peter's.  I  had  not  imagined 
the  entrance  to  be  so  colossal.  Before  passing  the  immense  por- 
tal, I  was  filled  with  wonder,  which  was  not  diminished  by  the 
view  within.  It  is  a  symbol  of  the  power  and  hopes  of  man. 
What  a  majestic  work  of  human  hands !  All  its  magnificent 
details  are  swallowed  in  its  immensity.  The  one  all-absorbing 
idea  is  vastness. 

ONDAY,  Feb.  27th. 

Our  first  visit  to-day  was  to  Crawford's  studio.  His  Orpheus 
is  here  reputed  a  statue  of  high  merit.  The  conception  is  at 
once  simple  and  rich.  The  attitude  is  well  adapted  to  display 
life  and  grace,  the  long  line  from  the  hindmost  foot  to  the  end  of 


THE  CENCI.  121 


the  curved  arm,  being  one  of  the  finest  sweeps  the  human  body 
can  present.  The  act  of  protecting  the  eyes  with  the  hand,  im- 
parts life  as  well  by  the  shadow  it  casts  on  the  countenance  as 
by  its  characteristic  propriety.  The  large  fabulous-looking  heads 
of  the  music-subdued  Cerberus  sleep  well,  and  the  group  takes 
at  once  such  hold  of  the  imagination,  that  their  expression  seems 
that  of  involuntary  sleep.  'Tis  in  itself  a  great  merit  in  a  work 
of  art  to  make  the  mind  of  the  beholder  assist  its  effect.  The 
selection  of  the  subject  and  the  execution  are  equally  happy,  and 
denote  the  genial  Artist.  We  went  next  to  Thorwaldsen's  studio. 
Here  I  was  somewhat  disappointed.* 

At  the  Barberini  Palace  we  saw  the  Beatrice  Cenci  of  Guido. 
People  go  to  see  it  on  account  of  her  most  awful  story ;  and  the 
story  is  not  fully  told  to  one  who  has  not  seen  the  picture.  Guido 
was  wrought  up  to  his  highest  power  of  execution.  The  face  is 
of  the  most  beautiful,  and  through  this  beauty  streams  the  bewil- 
dered soul,  telling  the  terrific  tale.  It  looks  like  a  picture  after 
which  the  artist  had  taken  a  long  rest.  It  is  wonderful.  We 
next  went  hastily  through  the  Doria  Gallery,  one  of  the  richest 
private  collections  in  the  world. 

TUESDAY,  Feb.  28th. 

After  breakfast  I  walked  to  the  Minerva  church  to  see  the 
funeral  ceremony  for  a  Cardinal.  In  the  square  before  the 
church  was  the  Pope's  carriage  with  six  horses,  and  a  score  of 
the  scarlet  carriages  of  the  Cardinals.  The  interior  of  the  church 
was  hung  with  black  and  gold.  The  body  of  the  deceased  Car- 
dinal lay  in  state,  in  the  centre  of  the  nave,  on  a  broad  bulky 
couch  raised  about  ten  feet.  Around  it  at  some  distance  were 
burning  purple  candles.  The  music  of  the  service  was  solemn 
and  well  executed,  in  part  by  castrati.  The  Pope  descended  from 
his  throne,  and,  supported  on  either  side  by  a  Cardinal,  and  at 

*  Jt  will  be  seen  that  this  first  impression  was  afterwards  removed. 
7 


122  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

tended  by  other  ecclesiastical  dignitaries,  went  to  the  front  of  the 
couch  and  pronounced  absolution  upon  the  deceased.  He  then 
walked  twice  round  the  body,  throwing  up  incense  towards  it  out 
of  a  golden  censer.  His  pontifical  robe  was  crimson  and  gold. 
He  evidently  performed  the  service  with  emotion.  The  whole 
spectacle  was  imposing  and  luxurious.  The  gorgeous  couch  and 
habiliments  of  the  deceased,  the  rich  and  various  robes,  the  pur- 
ple candles,  the  sumptuous  solemn  hangings,  the  incense  and  the 
mellow  music,  compounded  a  refined  feast  for  the  senses.  Such 
ceremonies  can  speak  but  feebly  to  the  soul.  In  the  crowd  that 
filled  the  large  church,  there  was  observable  some  curiosity,  and 
a  quiet  air  of  enjoyment,  but  very  little  devotion.  After  the  ser- 
vice, as  the  Pope's  carriage  on  leaving  the  square  passed  close 
by  me,  an  elderly  man  at  my  side  dropped  suddenly  on  his  knees, 
shouting  "  Santo  Padre,  la  benedizione,"  which  the  Pope  gave  as 
his  horses  went  off  in  a  trot,  and  of  which  I  too,  from  my  position, 
had  a  share. 

In  the  afternoon  we  hired  seats  in  the  Corso,  to  see  the  last  day 
of  the  Carnival.  The  Italians,  disciplined  by  Church  and  State, 
know  how  to  run  wild  on  such  an  occasion  without  grossness  or 
disorder.  People  all  shouting  and  fooling,  and  no  coarse  extrava- 
gances or  interruptions  of  good  humor.  At  sunset  the  street  was 
cleared  in  the  centre,  and  half  a  dozen  horses  started  at  one  end, 
without  riders,  to  race  to  the  other.  After  this,  the  evening 
ended  with  the  entertainment  of  the  ?nocolo,  which  is  a  thin  wax 
lighted  taper,  wherewith  one  half  the  crowd  provide  themselves, 
while  the  others,  with  handkerchiefs  and  similar  weapons,  strike 
at  them  to  put  them  out.  This  makes  an  illumination  of  the 
whole  street,  and  keeps  up  a  constant  noisy  combat.  Thousands 
of  people  in  masks  and  fantastic  costumes. 

WEDNESDAY,  March  1st,  1843 

If  priests  were  raised  nearer  to  God   by  distinguishing  them" 


ASH-WEDNESDAY.  123 


selves  from  their  fellow-men  through  the  means  of  gorgeous  gar- 
niture and  pompous  ceremony,  the  exhibition  we  this  morning 
witnessed  at  the  Sistine  Chapel  would  have  been  solemn  and 
inspiring.  Up  flight  after  flight  of  the  broad  gently  ascending 
stairway  of  St.  Peter's,  we  reached  the  celebrated  Chapel.  Seated 
on  the  pontifical  throne,  on  one  side  of  the  altar  at  the  further 
extremity  of  the  Chapel,  under  Michael  Angelo's  Last  Judgment, 
was  the  Pope.  On  his  head  was  a  lofty  mitre  of  silver  tissue, 
and  his  stole  was  of  crimson  and  gold.  To  his  right,  on  an  ele- 
vated broad  ottoman  that  ran  along  the  wall  of  the  Chapel  and 
crossed  it  about  the  middle,  were  ranged  more  than  twenty  Car- 
dinals  in  robes  of  light  purple  silk  and  gold.  Around  the  Pope 
was  a  crowd  of  ministering  Prelates,  and  at  the  foot  of  each  Car- 
dinal sat,  in  a  picturesque  dress,  an  attendant,  apparently  a  priest, 
who  aided  him  to  change  his  robe,  an  operation  that  was  performed 
more  than  once  during  the  long  service.  The  folio  missal,  out 
of  which  the  Pope  read,  was  held  before  him ;  when  he  approached 
the  altar  from  his  throne  his  robe  was  held  up ;  and  in  the  same 
way  one  of  the  attendant  prelates  removed  and  replaced  several 
times  his  mitre.  Part  of  the  service  consisted  in  kissing  his  foot, 
a  ceremony  which  was  performed  by  about  a  hundred  bishops 
and  prelates  in  various  ecclesiastical  costumes.  This  being  the 
first  day  of  Lent,  Ash- Wednesday,  the  benediction  of  the  ashes  is 
given  always  by  the  Pope,  and  on  the  heads  of  those  who  have 
the  privilege  of  kissing  his  toe  (Cardinals  don't  go  lower  than 
the  knee)  he  lays  a  pinch  of  the  consecrated  ashes. 

When  I  look  back  to  the  whole  spectacle,  though  only  after  the 
lapse  of  a  few  hours,  I  seem  to  have  been  present  at  some  bar- 
baric pageant.  The  character  of  the  exhibition  overbears  my 
knowledge  of  its  purport,  and  I  could  doubt  that  I  have  witnessed 
a  Christian  ritual. 

Afterwards  in  passing  over  Monte  Cavallo,  we  came  suddenly 
upon  the  colossal  statues  by  Phidias  and  Praxiteles.  'Twas  a 


124  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

rich  surprise.  Like  St.  Peter's  and  the  Colosseum  they  sur- 
passed my  expectation.  Their  heroic  forms  stood  out  against  the 
sky  like  majestic  apparitions  come  to  testify  to  the  glories  of  old 
Greece. 

In  the  afternoon  we  went  to  Gibson's  studio,  where  we  were 
pleased  both  with  the  artist  and  his  works. 

THURSDAY,  March  2d. 

First  to  the  Capitol,  built,  under  the  direction  of  Michael 
Angelo,  on  the  foundation  of  the  ancient.  Innumerable  fragments 
and  statues.  In  the  Colossal  River-God  in  the  Court,  the  grace 
and  slumbering  power  of  the  large  recumbent  figure  are  remark, 
able.  According  to  our  custom  at  the  first  visit,  we  went  hastily 
through  the  gallery,  only  pausing  before  the  dying  Gladiator. 
Here,  as  in  all  master-pieces  of  Art,  is  the  intense  infusion  of  the 
will  of  the  Artist  into  his  work.  This  is  the  inscrutable  power 
of  genius. 

Thence  to  the  Church  of  Santa  Maria  Majore,  the  nave  of 
which  is  supported  by  thirty-six  beautiful  columns,  taken  from  a 
temple  of  Juno.  Modern  Rome  is  doubly  enriched  out  of  the 
spoils  of  ancient. 

In  the  afternoon  we  drove  to  the  Vatican.  What  a  wilderness 
of  marble !  You  walk,  I  was  about  to  say,  for  miles  through 
avenues  of  sculpture.  Of  the  Apollo,  Laocoon,  and  Antinous,  I 
can  say  nothing  to-day,  except  that  great  statues  lose  much  in 
casts.  What  an  edifice  !  Drove  to  the  Villa  Borghese. 

FRIDAY,  March  3d. 

Our  first  stage  to-day  in  our  daily  travel  over  Rome  was  at  the 
baths  of  Caracalla,  one  of  the  most  emphatic  testimonials  of  Roman 
magnificence.  The  ruins,  consisting  now  of  little  else  than  the 
outer  and  dividing  walls,  cover  several  acres.  Sixteen  hundred 
persons  could  bathe  at  a  time.  Besides  the  baths,  there  were 


] 


CHURCHES  OF  ROME.  125 

halls  for  games  and  for  sculpture,  and  here  have  been  dug  up 
several  masterpieces.  Here  and  there  a  piece  of  the  lofty  roof  is 
preserved,  and  we  ascended  to  the  top  of  one  of  the  halls,  whence 
there  is  a  good  view  of  a  large  section  of  the  region  of  ruins. 
Except  in  the  Fora  and  Arches,  one  sees  nowhere  columns  among 
the  ruins.  These,  as  well  as  nearly  all  marble  in  whatever 
shape,  being  too  precious  to  be  left  to  adorn  the  massive  remnants 
of  Pagan  Rome,  have  been  taken  to  beautify  the  Churches  and 
Palaces  of  her  Christian  heir. 

From  the  baths  of  Caracalla  we  went  along  the  Appian  way, 
passing  the  tomb  of  the  Scipios,  and  under  the  arch  of  Drusus, 
to  the  tomb  of  Cecilia  Metella,  a  large  massive  round  tower, 
the  largest  monument  ever  raised  to  a  woman.  Thence  to  the 
Columbarium  or  tomb  of  the  household  of  the  Caesars.  The 
name  is  derived  from  the  resemblance  of  the  structure  to  a 
pigeon-house,  as  well  in  its  general  form  as  in  that  of  the  little 
semi-circular  receptacles  for  the  ashes. 

In  the  afternoon  we  visited  among  other  churches  that  of 
Santa  Maria  Degli  Angeli,  formerly  the  Baths  of  Diocletian, 
which  was  adapted  to  the  shape  and  purpose  of  a  church  by 
Michael  Angelo.  A  grand  one  it  is  with  its  immense  pillars  of 
Egyptian  granite. 

As  according  to  Roman  Catholic  usage,  several  masses  are 
performed  in  one  morning  to  as  many  different  congregations, 
a  given  number  of  inhabitants  would  require  as  Catholics  a  much 
smaller  number  of  churches  than  it  would  being  Protestant.  But 
were  the  whole  people  of  Rome  to  assemble  at  worship,  at  the 
same  hour,  in  as  many  churches  as  would  be  needed  for  easy 
accommodation,  even  then,  nine  tenths  of  them  would  be  empty. 
For  three  or  four  centuries  the  population  has  been  at  no  time 
more  numerous  than  it  is  now,  and  seldom  so  numerous ;  and 
owing  to  civil  and  foreign  wars  previous  to  the  fifteenth  century, 
and  to  the  seventy  years'  absence  of  the  Papal  Court,  it  has 


126  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

probably  not  been  greater  than  at  present  since  the  downfall  of 
the  Empire.  So  that  there  always  have  been  ten  times  as  many 
churches  as  are  needed.  Rome  has  a  population  of  about  one 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  souls,  and  counts  over  three  hundred 
churches.  With  thirty,  all  her  people  would  have  ample  room 
for  worship.  Had  half  of  the  thought,  labor,  and  money,  wasted 
in  building,  adorning  and  preserving  the  others,  been  bestowed 
upon  schools  and  seminaries,  there  would  have  been  not  less  re- 
ligion, and  far  more  mental  culture  and  morality ;  and  Rome 
might  now  be  really  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  capital  of  the 
world,  instead  of  being  the  centre  of  a  decrepid  form  of  Chris- 
tianity, to  which  she  clings  chiefly  by  the  material  ties  that  bind 
men  to  an  ecclesiastical  system  which  embosoms  high  places  of 
worldly  eminence. 

Nothing  is  shallower  than  carpingly  to  point  out  how  commu- 
nities or  individuals  might  be  better  than  they  are.  The  above 
estimate  is  not  made  in  a  spirit  of  barren  detraction ;  it  shows 
into  what  extravagant  abuses  of  God's  best  gifts  man  is  prone  to 
run.  There  is  at  any  rate  comfort  in  the  evidence  here  pre- 
sented,— if  such  were  wanting, — of  great  spiritual  vitality  in 
human  nature.  Part  of  the  gross  misdirection  thereof  may  be 
ascribed  to  the  mental  darkness  during  many  of  the  first  ages 
of  Christian  Europe,  and  part  to  the  selfishness  necessarily  inhe- 
rent in  a  body  constituted  like  the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood. 
The  darkness  has  been  greatly  diminished,  and  individual  inde- 
pendence has  been  sufficiently  developed  not  to  abide  much 
longer  corporate  usurpations,  civil  or  ecclesiastical.  There  may 
be  hope,  that  through  this  natural  fund  of  spirituality,  under 
healthier  development  and  clearer  guidance,  humanity  will  go  on 
righting  itself  more  and  more,  and  that  under  its  influence  even 
Rome  shall  be  rejuvenated,  and  cease  to  be  the  hoary  juggler, 
that  out  of  the  spiritual  wants  of  man  wheedles  raiment  of  gold 
for  her  own  body  and  mansions  of  marble. 


M.  ANGELO'S  MOSES.  127 

Drove  out  to  Mount  Sacer,  and  afterwards  to  the  Pincian. 

Saturday,  March  4th. 

Rain  every  day.  Among  the  curiosities  we  this  morning 
inspected  in  the  library  of  the  Vatican,  were  a  collection 
of  cameos  and  other  small  antiques  dug  up  in  Rome; 
several  of  the  bronze  plates  whereon  were  inscribed  the  de- 
crees of  the  Senate,  but  of  the  fallen  Senate  under  the  Empe- 
rors ;  specimens  of  Giotto  and  Cimabue  ;  manuscript  of  Cicero's 
Treatise  on  the  Republic,  made  in  the  fifth  century,  and  written 
over  by  St.  Augustine,  with  a  treatise  on  the  Psalms  ;  manuscript 
of  Petrarch ;  illuminated  edition  of  the  Divina  Comedia ;  papy- 
rus. To  us  as  well  as  to  the  Pope  it  is  a  convenience  that  St. 
Peter's  and  the  Vatican  are  cheek  by  cheek.  On  coming  out 
of  the  library  we  entered  the  great  church  to  enjoy  its  beautiful 
vastness. 

In  the  afternoon  we  went  to  see  Michael  Angelo's  colossal 
statue  of  Moses  in  the  church  of  St.  Peter  in  chains,  a  beautiful 
church  (the  interior  I  mean)  with  twenty  fluted  Parian  columns. 
Here  are  preserved,  'tis  said,  the  chains  of  St.  Peter.  The 
Moses  is  a  great  masterpiece.  It  justifies  the  sublime  lines  of 
the  sonnet  it  inspired  to  Zappi : 

Questi  e  Mose  quando  scendea  del  monte, 
E  gran  parte  del  Nume  avea  nel  Volto.* 

Power  and  thought  are  stamped  on  the  brow ;  the  nose  breathes 
the  breath  of  a  concentrated  giant ;  an  intellectual  smile  sits  on 
the  large  oriental  mouth,  which  looks  apt  to  utter  words  of  com- 
fort or  command ;  the  long,  thick,  folded  beard  bespeaks  vigor, 
and  gives  grandeur  to  the  countenance  ;  and  the  eyes,  of  which, 
contrary  to  the  usage  of  high  sculpture,  the  pupils  are  marked, 

*  This  is  Moses  when  he  came  down  from  the  mountain, 
And  had  in  his  countenance  a  great  part  of  the  Deity. 


128  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

absolutely  sparkle.  The  figure  is  seated,  with  however  one  foot 
drawn  back,  as  if  ready  to  rise,  an  attitude  correspondent  to  the 
life  and  fire  of  the  countenance.  From  this  grand  work  one 
learns  what  a  mighty  soul  was  in  Michael  Angelo. 

In  the  sacristy  is  a  beautiful  head  by  Guido,  representing 
Hope,  as  rapt  and  still  as  an  angel  listening  to  the  music  of 
Heaven.  In  this  church  was  held  under  the  Emperor  Constan- 
tine,  as  says  an  inscription  in  it,  a  council,  which  condemned 
Arian  and  other  schismatics,  and  burnt  their  books.  We  next 
visited  St.  Martin  on  the  Hill,  also  constructed  with  columns 
from  an  ancient  temple.  Through  the  church  we  descended  into 
a  vault  below  where  had  been  Imperial  baths,  and  afterwards  a 
ohurch  of  the  early  Christians  before  Constantine.  Adjoining 
this  venerable  spot  was  an  opening  that  led  into  the  catacombs, 
where  the  persecuted  Christians  used  to  conceal  themselves. 
On  slabs  m  the  upper  church  were  inscribed  the  names  of  many 
martyrs  w  ose  tombs  had  been  found  below ;  among  them  those 
of  several  /*opes.  Thence  towards  sunset,  we  went  to  the 
church  of  the  Jesuits,  laden,  like  so  many  others,  with  pictures 
and  marbles  and  sparkling  altars,  and  sepulchral  monuments. 
The  grand  altar  just  finished  cost  upwards  of  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars.  On  one  side  of  the  church  a  thin  sallow  Jesuit 
in  a  dark  robe  and  cap  was  preaching  to  about  a  hundred  per- 
sons, chiefly  of  th.  poorer  class.  I  regretted  that  I  had  not  come 
in  time  to  hear  n,  re  of  his  sermon,  for  a  purer  pronunciation 
and  sweeter  voice  1  never  listened  to.  His  elocution  too  was 
good  and  his  gesticulation  graceful,  and  his  matter  and  manner 
were  naif  and  unjesuitlike.  He  told  his  auditors  that  what  the 
holy  Virgin  required  of  them,  especially  now  during  Lent,  was 
to  examine  their  souls,  and  if  they  found  them  spotted  with  sins 
to  free  themselves  therefrom  by  a  full  confession,  and  if  not,  to 
betake  themselves  more  and  more  to  the  zealous  cultivation  of 
the  virtues.  There  was  a  sincerity,  simplicity  and  sweetness 


ST.  PETER'S.  129 


in  the  feeling  and  utterance  of  this  young  man,  that  were  most 
fascinating.  When  he  had  finished,  he  glided  away  into  the 
recesses  of  the  dim  church  like  an  apparition. 

SUNDAY,  March  5th. 

To-day  we  remitted  our  labors.  Late  in  the  morning  I 
walked  up  the  stairway  of  the  Trinity  of  the  Mount  to  the  gar- 
den of  the  Villa  Medici ;  and  afterwards  to  Monte  Cavallo  to 
behold  again  the  two  colossal  Greek  Statues.  They  must  be 
seen  early  or  late,  for  at  other  hours  the  sky  dazzles  the  sight 
as  you  attempt  to  look  up  at  them. 

In  the  afternoon  we  drove  to  St.  Peter's.  Its  immensity  enlarges 
at  each  repeated  beholding.  'Tis  so  light, — the  interior  I  mean, 
— so  illuminated,  that  it  looks  as  though  it  had  been  poised  from 
above,  and  not  built  upward  from  an  earthly  foundation.  In  one 
section  of  it  is  a  series  of  confessionals,  dedicated  to  the  various 
languages  of  Europe.  In  each  sat  a  priest  ready  to  listen  to  and 
shrive  in  the  tongue  inscribed  over  his  portal.  Vespers  at  four. 
The  voices  were  fine,  but  the  music,  not  being  sacred,  was  not 
effective  in  a  church.  One  hears  at  times  in  music  cadences  of 
such  expression,  that  they  seem  about  to  utter  a  revelation ;  and 
then  they  fade  of  a  sudden  into  common  melody,  as  though  the 
earthly  medium  were  incompetent  to  transmit  the  heavenly  voice. 

We  drove  afterward  to  the  Pincian  Hill  in  a  cold  north  wind. 

MONDAY,  March  6th. 

Walked  before  breakfast  to  Monte  Cavallo.  Our  first  stage 
after  breakfast  was  to  the  house  of  Nero,  over  which  were  built, 
in  part,  the  Baths  of  Titus.  This  is  one  of  the  best  preserved 
bits  of  old  Rome.  The  walls  of  brick  are  from  three  to  five  feet 
thick,  the  rooms  nearly  forty  high.  On  some  of  the  ceilings  and 
walls  are  distinct  specimens  of  Arabesque.  Thence  to  look  at 
the  holy  staircase  of  the  Lateran,  said  to  be  of  the  house  of 
Pontius  Pilate.  The  feelings  that  would  arise  on  standing  before 
7* 


130  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

such  an  object  is  checked  by  doubt  that  will  come  up  as  to  its 
authenticity.  No  one  is  permitted  to  mount  the  stairs  except  on 
his  knees ;  and  being  of  stone,  they  are  kept  covered  with  wood 
to  preserve  them  from  being  worn  out.  In  the  Church  of  Santa 
Croce  in  Gerusalemme,  founded  by  St.  Helen,  the  mother  of  Con- 
stantine,  is  preserved,  'tis  said,  the  cross  of  one  of  the  thieves 
crucified  with  Jesus. 

In  the  Gallery  of  the  Colonna  Palace  we  saw  this  morning 
several  fine  portraits  and  a  beautiful  St.  Agnes,  by  Guido,  with 
that  heavenward  look  he  delighted  to  paint,  and  painted  so  well. 
In  the  magnificent  Hall  of  the  Palace  we  were  shown  the  por- 
trait of  the  Colonna  who  commanded  at  Lepanto.,  In  the  after- 
noon we  went  for  the  second  time  to  the  Vatican.  How  the  most 
beautiful  things  teach  you  to  admire  them  !  Genius,  which  is  by 
its  essence  original,  embodies  its  idea,  the  totality  whereof  even 
the  most  genial  sympathy  cannot  at  first  take  in.  By  repetition  the 
whole  spirit  of  the  creation  is  imbibed,  and  only  then  does  the  mind 
receive  the  full  image  of  what  it  beholds,  learning  thus,  by  a 
necessary  process,  from  beauty  itself  to  appreciate  its  quality. 
Thus  the  Apollo  will  go  on  growing  into  our  vision  until  we 
can,  if  not  entirely,  yet  deeply  enjoy  its  inexhaustible  beauty. 
On  coming  out  of  the  Vatican  we  walked  again  into  St.  Peter's. 
Are  its  proportions  perfect  and  its  colors  all  in  unison,  or  is  it  its 
vastness  that  tones  down  all  the  constituents  to  harmony  ?  It 
fills  me  always  with  delight  and  wonder. 

Towards  sunset  we  drove  to  the  church  of  St.  Peter,  in  Monto- 
rio,  whence,  from  the  terrace,  is  a  sweeping  view  of  Rome.  We 
looked  down  over  the  "  Eternal  City."  Directly  in  front,  and 
east  of  us  about  a  mile,  was  the  majestic  Colosseum.  Between 
us  and  the  Tiber  was  the  Camp  of  Porsenna.  To  the  left, 
beyond  the  Tiber,  was  once  the  Campus  Martius,  now  the  most 
thickly  peopled  quarter  of  modern  Rome.  An  epitome  of  a  large 
portion  of  the  world's  history  lay  at  our  feet.  There  stood  the 


THE  PANTHEON.  131 


Capitol  of  the  Republic,  and  beyond,  the  ruins  of  the  Palace  of 
the  Caesars,  and  all  about  us  were  the  Palaces  and  Churches  of 
their  papal  heir.  Back  of  the  Church  is  the  Fontana  Paolina, 
built  of  stone  from  the  Forum  of  Nerva,  by  Pope  Paul  V.,  a 
Borghese.  The  water  gushes  out  through  five  apertures  in 
volume  enough  for  a  Swiss  cascade. 

TUESDAY,  March  7th. 

We  drove  out  this  morning  to  the  Villa  Parnphili,  the  grounds 
of  which,  having  a  circumference  of  four  miles,  are  the  most 
extensive  of  the  Roman  villas.  Here  are  stately  umbrella-shaped 
pines.  Fields  of  grass,  thickly  studded  with  flowers,  verified  what 
had  hitherto  been  to  me  a  poetic  fiction.  From  the  top  of  the  house 
is  a  wide  noble  prospect.  Returning,  we  drove  through  part  of 
the  Jews'  quarter  to  the  Square  of  Navona,  the  largest  in  Rome, 
in  ancient  times  a  race-course,  now  a  vegetable  market.  In  the 
afternoon  we  went  to  the  Pantheon,  the  best  preserved  remnant  of 
ancient  Rome,  built  by  Agrippa,  the  son-in-law  of  Augustus,  as 
the  great  Hall  of  the  public  baths  by  him  established,  afterwards 
converted  into  a  temple  to  Jupiter,  then  to  all  the  Gods,  whence 
its  name,  and  as  early  as  the  seventh  century  consecrated  a 
Christian  Church,  under  the  name  of  St.  Mary  of  the  Martyrs, 
by  Pope  Boniface  IV.,  who  buried  under  the  chief  altar  twenty- 
eight  wagon  loads  of  relics  of  the  martyrs.  The  light  (and  rain) 
comes  in  through  a  wide  circle  left  open  at  the  top  of  the  dome. 
The  pavement  is  of  porphyry.  Here  Raphael  is  buried,.  We 
drove  afterwards  to  the  villa  Borghese,  crowded  with  ancient 
marble,  among  which  is  a  long  series  of  busts  of  Roman  Empe- 
rors in  "  antique  red."  The  heads  are  nearly  all  of  one  type,  and 
denote  the  energetic,  practical  character  of  the  Romans.  The 
statue  of  Pauline,  one  of  the  treasures  of  the  villa,  is  the  most  beau- 
tiful work  I  have  seen  of  Canova.  Returning,  we  saw  near  the 
gate  some  rich  Italian  faces.  Italy  reminds  one  at  times  of  a 


132  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

beautiful  Guido  Magdalen,  her  tearful  countenance  upturned 
towards  heaven,  so  lovely  in  her  affliction,  such  subdued  passion 
in  her  luxurious  features,  such  hope  in  her  lucent  eyes. 

WKDNKSDAY,  March  8th. 

We  spent  most  of  the  morning  in  the  studios  of  sculptors,  and 
the  afternoon  in  churches.  What  a  multiplication  of  the  human 
form  in  marble  !  The  Churches  are  peopled  with  statues  brown 
with  age,  and  in  the  studios  they  dazzle  you  with  youthful  white- 
ness. 

To  describe  in  verse  the  surface  of  a  man's  mind  is  not  to 
write  poetry ;  nor  is  the  imitation  of  the  human  body  the  exercise 
of  a  fine  Art.  The  Sculptor's  function  is  to  concentrate  in  one 
body  the  beauty  and  character  of  many.  When  he  does  this  he 
creates,  and  until  he  creates,  he  is  not  up  to  his  vocation.  Nature 
is  not  always  beautiful,  but  at  the  bottom  of  all  her  phenomena 
is  the  spirit  of  beauty.  Her  essence  is  beauty,  and  this  essence 
the  worker  with  the  chisel  must  extract  and  then  embody,  else  is 
he  a  barren  Artist. 

We  saw  this  morning  Guido's  Aurora.  Here  is  a  subject  most 
apt  for  pictorial  representation.  The  idea  has  sufficient  intensity 
to  irradiate  the  whole  body.  In  few  large  compositions  is  there 
soul  enough  in  the  thought  to  animate  the  members  ;  or  if  there 
be  fire,  there  is  lack  of  beauty.  Here  the  idea,  the  parent  of  the 
whole  work,  is  both  strong  and  beautiful,  and  the  execution  being 
correspondent,  the  effect  is  complete.  Afterwards,  in  the  Minerva 
Church,  we  saw  a  statue  of  Christ,  by  Michael  Angelo.  It  wants 
character  and  beauty.  The  subject  is  not  suited  to  Michael 
Angelo's  genius. 

THURSDAY,  March  9th. 

We  visited  this  morning  the  studio  of  Wolf,  a  German  sculptor 
of  reputation.  A  sweet  dancing  girl  and  a  graceful  Diana 
attracted  us  most.  The  foreign  Artists  in  Italy  seem  well  nigh 


AN  ENGLISH  SERMON  133 

to  take  the  lead  of  the  native,  owing,  probably,  to  the  enjoyment 
of  greater  liberty,  the  Italians  being  more  under  the  chilling  sway 
of  academical  rules,  and  the  influence  of  the  by  no  means  pure 
example  of  Canova.  We  walked  afterwards  in  the  garden  of  the 
Villa  Medici,  the  prison  of  Galileo  during  his  trial,  now  the  French 
Academy  ;  and  into  its  hall  of  plaster  casts,  where  is  a  collection 
of  the  best  antiques.  This  is  going  into  the  highest  company. 
These  are  genuine  aristocrats,  choice  specimens  of  manhood  and 
womanhood.  With  many  of  them,  time  and  ignorance  have 
dealt  roughly.  Some  are  without  arms,  others  without  legs, 
and  some  without  heads,  but  still  they  live.  In  their  mythology, 
what  a  Poem  the  ancient  Greeks  gave  birth  to  and  bequeathed 
to  the  world.  We  next  went  to  one  of  the  Churches,  to  hear  a 
sermon  from  an  English  Catholic  Prelate.  During  Lent,  there 
is  daily  preaching  in  many  of  the  Churches.  Chairs  were  set  for 
two  hundred  persons,  but  there  were  present  not  more  than  fifty. 
The  preacher  was  evidently  a  man  of  intellect,  but  dry  and  argu- 
mentative. The  drift  of  his  discourse  was  to  show  that  priests 
are  essential  to  salvation. 

Men,  with  all  their  selfishness,  and  perhaps  through  a  modifica- 
tion thereof,  have  ever  been  prone  to  give  up  their  affairs  in  trust 
to  others,  the  trustees  dividing  themselves  into  the  three  hitherto 
inevitable  classes,  the  legal,  the  medical,  and  the  theological. 
Some  even  avail  themselves  to  the  full  of  all  these  helps  and  sub- 
stitutes, abandoning  the  conduct  of  their  worldly  possessions  to 
their  man  of  business,  their  bodies  passively  to  their  physician, 
and  their  souls  as  passively  to  their  pastor.  These  languid  nega- 
tives are  of  course  few.  By  degrees  the  axiom  is  getting  to  be 
valued,  that  to  thrive,  whether  secularly  or  spiritually,  a  man 
must  look  to  his  own  interests.  People  are  beginning  to  discern, 
that  health  is  not  a  blessing  in  the  gift  of  Doctors,  that  Religion 
is  independent  of  hierarchies,  and  that  the  first  preachers  of 
Christianity  were  quite  a  different  kind  of  men  from  most  of  the 


134  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

atest.  Some  men  are  pre-eminently  endowed  to  develope  and 
feed  the  spiritual  element  of  our  nature,  and  most  reverently  do 
I  regard  and  cordially  hearken  to  such  wherever  I  meet  with 
them.  As  in  the  preacher  before  me,  I  perceived  no  marks 
of  such  inspiration,  and  as  there  was  neither  eloquence  nor  art  to 
give  his  discourse  the  attraction  of  an  intellectual  entertainment, 
we  soon  left  the  church,  a  movement  which  can  be  effected  here 
without  notice.  He  handled  his  argument  not  without  skill,  and 
doubtless  the  sermon  was  edifying  to  most  of  his  auditors,  their 
minds  having  been  drilled  by  him  and  his  colleagues  into  the 
habit  of  acquiescence. 

The  ordinary  service  was  going  on  at  the  same  time  inde- 
pendently in  a  side  chapel,  where  a  very  aged  ecclesiastic,  in 
a  white  satin  embroidered  robe,  was  saying  mass,  which  to  us,  in 
the  outskirts  of  tfre  English  Company,  was  quite  audible.  He 
was  entirely  alone,  having  no  assistant  at  the  altar  and  not  a  sin 
gle  worshipper  ;  until  just  before  he  concluded,  a  bright-faced 
boy,  ten  or  twelve  years  of  age,  came  in  with  a  long  staff,  to  put 
out  the  tall  candle.  Ere  the  venerable  father  had  ceased  praying, 
the  little  fellow  had  the  extinguisher  up,  thrusting  it  now  and  then 
half  over  the  flame  with  playful  impatience.  The  instant  the 
old  man  had  finished,  out  went  the  candle,  and  the  boy,  taking 
he  large  missal  in  his  arms,  walked  off,  looking  over  towards  us 
for  notice,  and  restraining  with  difficulty  his  steps  to  the  pace  of 
the  aged  priest,  who  tottered  after  him. 

On  leaving  the  church,  we  went  for  the  first  time  to  the 
Borghese  Gallery,  froely  open  to  strangers,  and  to  artists,  ot 
whom,  in  the  different  rooms,  there  were  several  taking  copies. 
Strangers  in  Rome  owe  much  to  the  unexampled  liberality  of  the 
Italian  nobles,  ia  opening  to  them  the  treasures  of  their  palaces 
and  villas. 

In  the  afternoon  to  the  Vatican,  where  again  we  had  a  cloudy 
sky,  and  were  therefore  again  disappointed  before  the  great  fres- 


SALTATOR  ROSA.  135 


coes  of  Raphael,  which,  from  the  darkness  of  the  rooms  wherein 
they  are  painted,  hav'n't  light  enough  even  on  the  sunniest  days. 
On  coming  out  we  took  our  accustomed  walk  up  under  the  dome 
of  St.  Peter's. 

FRIDAY,  March  10th. 

We  visited  this  morning  the  Corsini  Gallery,  in  which  is  the 
bound  Prometheus  of  Salvator  Rosa,  with  his  fiery  stamp  upon  it. 
The  horror  which  a  lesser  genius  could  excite,  cannot  be  subdued 
by  any  mastery  of  art.  The  keeper  of  the  rooms,  with  the  hostile 
feeling  reciprocated  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  different  sections 
of  Italy,  remarked,  that  none  but  a  Neapolitan  would  choose  so 
bloody  a  subject.  Another  remarkable  picture  in  this  collection, 
is  a  head  of  Christ  bound  with  thorns,  by  Guercino.  The  agony, 
the  fortitude,  the  purity  are  all  there,  and  in  the  upcast  translu- 
cent eyes  is  an  infinite  depth  of  feeling,  as  of  mingled  expostula- 
tion and  resignation,  that  recalls  vividly  the  touching  words,  "  My 
God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?"  3Tis  one  of  the 
masterpieces  of  Rome. 

At  twelve  we  found  ourselves  in  St.  Peter's,  to  witness  the 
ceremony  which  takes  place  every  Friday  during  Lent.  The 
Pope,  attended  by  his  household  and  a  numerous  body  of  Cardi- 
nals and  other  prelates,  says  prayers  successively  at  several  dif- 
ferent altars.  The  Swiss  Guard,  in  the  old-time  costume  with 
pikes,  formed  a  hollow  oblong,  within  which  the  Pope  and  the 
whole  cortege  of  priests  knelt.  For  the  Pope  and  Cardinals  a 
cushion  was  provided  ;  the  others  knelt  on  the  marble  pavement. 
The  Pope  prayed  inaudibly,  and  seemed  to  do  so  with  heart. 
The  strange  uniform  of  the  Guards,  the  numerous  robed  priests 
kneeling  behind  their  chief,  the  gorgeous  towering  vaults  above 
them,  and  the  sacred  silence,  made  a  beautiful  scene. 

In  the  afternoon  we  drove  to  the  Villa  Mills,  built  above  the 
ruins  of  the  House  of  Augustus,  on  Mount  Palatine.  Through  a 


136  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

door  in  the  garden,  round  which  clustered  lemons,  roses,  and 
oranges,  we  descended  to  several  of  the  rooms  of  Augustus,  the 
floor  whereof  is  about  thirty  feet  below  the  present  surface.  From 
various  points  in  the  garden  we  had  views  of  the  majestic  rem- 
nants of  imperial  Rome, — the  Colosseum,  the  baths  of  Caracalla, 
the  temple  of  Peace,  part  of  the  Forum,  the  temple  of  Vesta,  the 
Pyramid  of  Caius  Cestius,  the  tomb  of  Cecilia  Metella,  inter- 
spersed  with  convents  and  churches  and  scattered  buildings. 
Over  the  wall  on  the  southern  side  of  the  Villa  grounds,  you  look 
directly  down  upon  some  remains  of  the  Circus  Maximus,  which 
occupied  the  valley  between  the  Palatine  and  Aventine  Hills,  and 
where  took  place  the  rape  of  the  Sabines.  It  will  take  a  long 
while  for  Niebuhr  to  efface  belief  in  the  reality  of  those  early 
Roman  doings.  At  last  we  ascended  to  a  terrace  built  over  a 
spot  where  had  once  been  a  temple  of  Juno,  whence  was  a  pros- 
pect of  modern  Rome  with  its  throng  of  cupolas.  We  next 
mounted  the  Capitol  Hill,  to  go  into  the  Church  Aracaeli. 

SATURDAY,  March  llth. 

We  visited  this  morning  the  Convent  of  the  Sacre  Cceur  on  the 
Trinitd  del  Monte.  This  is  a  sisterhood  of  French  ladies,  some  of 
them  noble,  devoted  to  the  education  of  the  upper  classes.  The 
establishment  looked  the  model  of  neatness.  The  pupils,  who 
had  a  uniform  dress,  rose  and  curtsied  to  us  as  we  entered  the 
rooms.  They  looked  healthy  and  happy.  The  sisters  had  the 
manner  and  tone  of  well-bred  ladies,  chastened  by  seclusion  from 
the  rivalries  of  the  world.  It  is  one  of  the  results  of  Catholic 
organization  and  discipline,  that  in  an  institution  like  this,  a  field 
of  utility  is  opened  to  those  whom  disappointment,  or  distaste  for 
excitement,  or  a  natural  proneness  to  piety,  disposes  to  withdraw 
from  the  world.  Through  the  principle  of  association,  the  various 
resources  of  many  are  centred  upon  a  high  object,  and  much 
activity,  that  would  otherwise  have  lain  dormant  or  have  been 


CONVENT  HYMN.  137 


wasted,  is  turned  to  excellent  account.  From  one  of  the  lofty 
dormitories,  with  its  numerous  clean  white  beds,  we  looked  out 
into  a  broad  garden  belonging  to  the  convent,  and  beyond  this  to 
the  Ludovisi  grounds  and  Villa. 

Afterwards,  at  the  room  of  Flatz,  a  Tyrolese  painter,  we  were 
charmed  with  the  artist  and  his  works.  His  subjects  are  all  reli-; 
gious,  and  are  executed  with  uncommon  grace  and  feeling.  A 
pupil  of  his,  too,  Fink,  is  a  young  man  of  promise. 

There  are  people  with  minds  so  exclusively  religious,  that 
Religion  does  not, — as  is  its  office, — sustain,  temper,  exalt  their 
being ;  it  fills,  it  is  their  being.  When  the  character  is  upright 
and  simple,  such  persons  become  earnest  and  calm  ;  when  other- 
wise,  they  are  officious  and  sentimental.  If -their  intellect  is 
sensuous,  they  delight  in  the  imagery  and  manipulating  ceremo- 
nies of  the  Catholic  worship,  and  then,  having  of  course,  by  their 
original  structure,  no  intellectual  breadth  or  power,  they  will  be 
liable,  under  the  assaults  of  a  picture-loving  mind  and  absorbing 
devotional  feeling,  to  become  Romanists  even  in  Rome  itself! 

SUNDAY,  March  12th. 

This  afternoon  we  returned  to  the  chapel  of  the  Sacr6  Cceur, 
to  hear  the  music  at  the  evening  benediction.  'Twas  a  hymn 
from  the  sisterhood,  accompanied  by  the  organ.  The  service 
commenced  silently  at  the  altar,  round  which  curled  profuse  in- 
cense, that  glowed  before  the  lighted  candles  like  silver  dust.  The 
few  persons  present  were  kneeling,  when  the  stillness  was  broken 
by  a  gentle  gush  of  sound  from  the  invisible  choir  up  behind  us. 
It  came  like  a  heavenly  salutation.  The  soft  tones  seemed  mes- 
sengers out  of  the  Infinite,  that  led  the  spirit  up  to  whence  they 
had  come.  At  the  end  of  each  verse,  a  brief  response  issued 
from  deep  male  voices  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  church,  near  the 
altar,  sounding  like  an  earthly  answer  to  the  heavenly  call.  Then 
again  were  the  ears  possessed  by  the  feminine  harmony,  that 
poured  itself  down  upon  the  dim  chapel  like  an  unasked  blessing. 


138  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

MONDAY,  March  13th. 

This  morning,  at  the  Spada  Palace,  we  saw  the  statue  of  Pom- 
pey,  which  "  all  the  while  ran  blood  "  when  Csesar  fell  under  the 
blows  of  the  conspirators  in  the  Capitol.  JTis  a  colossal  figure, 
bout  ten  feet  in  height,  of  fine  character,  dignified,  vigorous,  and 
life-like.  We  drove  afterwards  out  to  the  English  burying-ground, 
where  lie  the  ashes  of  Shelley,  "  enriching  even  Rome,"  as  his 
wife  had  a  right  to  say.  I  revere  the  character,  and  admire  the 
genius  of  Shelley,  yet  I  was  not  moved  by  the  presence  of  his 
tomb.  Emotion  cannot  be  summoned  at  will,  I  have  at  times, 
in  a  holy  spot,  found  myself  in  a  state  of  utter  insensibility,  and, 
instead  of  turning  my  eyes  inward  under  its  spirit-moving  influ- 
ence, have  caught  my  lips  playing  with  the  reminiscence  of  a 
jest,  as  irrepressible  as  it  was  impertinent  in  such  a  place.  For 
all  that,  the  visit  was  not  barren ;  the  feeling  would  come  after- 
wards. 

In  the  afternoon,  we  visited  the  rooms  of  Overbeck,  the  distin- 
guished German  painter,  a  great  master  in  drawing  and  composi- 
tion. Like  Flatz,  his  subjects  are  all  scriptural. 

Very  few  artists  being  able  to  achieve  the  highest  triumph  in 
execution,  which  is  the  transparence  and  vivid  beauty  of  healthiest 
life,  addict  themselves  naturally,  in  a  critical  age,  to  an  emulous 
cultivation  of  those  qualities  which  through  study  are  more  attain- 
able, and  then  attach  to  them  a  kind  of  importance  which  they  do 
not  deserve.  This  seems  to  be  the  case  just  now  with  composi- 
tion, an  element  which  may  shine  in  a  picture  unworthy  of  per- 
manent regard,  and  which  stands  related  to  the  genial  quality  in 
Art  as  the  narrative  does  to  the  poetical  in  a  printed  volume. 
Under  genuine  inspiration,  the  parts  of  a  work  will  always,  when 
Art  is  out  of  its  first  rudiments,  put  themselves  together  compe- 
tently to  the  development  of  the  idea,  although  the  artist  may  not 
excel  in  composition  ;  but  from  the  most  skilful  combination  of 
the  constituent  parts,  will  never  be  generated  that  unfading  charm 


COLOSSEUM  BY  MOONLIGHT.  139 

of  life  and  beauty,  which  genius  alone  can  impart,  and  the  produc- 
tion whereof  even  genius  cannot  explain.  In  short,  composition 
is  the  intellectual  department  of  painting,  and  will  be  ineffective 
until  vivified  by  the  fire  of  feeling. 

We  walked  afterwards  through  the  gallery  of  the  Capitol,  and 
then  to  the  Tarpeian  rock. 

TUESDAY,  March  14th. 

We  commenced  the  day,  which  was  bright  at  last,  with  a  walk 
on  the  Pincian.  Visited  in  the  morning  a  second  time  the  rooms 
of  the  German  painter  Flatz,  and  his  pupil.  We  drove  after- 
wards through  the  sunny  air  past  the  Forum  and  Colosseum  out 
to  the  grand  church  of  St.  John  of  the  Lateran,  where,  in  the 
court,  is  the  finest  obelisk  in  Rome,  brought,  like  the  others,  from 
Egypt,  the  land  of  obelisks.  It  is  a  single  shaft  of  red  granite, 
more  than  a  hundred  feet  high. 

In  the  afternoon,  we  walked  again  on  the  Pincian,  amidst  a 
throng  of  people  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  in  carriages,  on 
horseback,  and  on  foot.  How  seldom  you  meet  a  fine  old  coun- 
tenance ;  one  that  has  been  enriched  by  years,  that  has  the  au- 
tumnal mellowness  of  joyous  and  benignant  sensations.  Oftener 
you  see  on  old  shoulders  a  face  corrugated  and  passion-ploughed, 
that  may  be  likened  to  a  river-bed,  which,  deserted  by  the  turbi<f 
spring  flood,  shows  a  hard,  parched  surface,  bestrewn  with  drift- 
wood and  unsightly  fragments,  that  tell  how  high  the  muddy  tor- 
rent has  revelled.  At  six,  we  went  to  see  the  Colosseum  by 
moonlight.  The  wondrous  old  pile  grows  more  eloquent  still  at 
night :  its  vastness  expands,  its  majesty  grows  more  majestic  ;  the 
dimness  of  the  hour  seems  congenial  to  its  antiquity.  The  patches 
of  moonlight  glistening  among  its  arches,  look  like  half  revela- 
tions of  a  thousand  mysteries  that  lie  coiled  up  in  its  bosom.  It 
has  the  air  of  a  mystic  temple  sprung  out  of  the  gloom,  for  a 
Sybil  to  brood  in  and  prophesy. 


140  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

WEDNESDAY,  March  15th. 

This  morning,  we  drove  out  of  the  Porta  del  Popolo,  the  north- 
ern  gate,  a  mile  and  a  half  just  over  the  bridge  of  Mole,  and 
returning  along  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber,  with  the  Villa  Ma- 
dama  and  Monte  Mario  on  the  right,  we  re-entered  Rome  near  St. 
Peter's.  Thence,  passing  through  the  busiest  part  of  the  modern 
city,  we  drove  between  the  Palatine  and  Aventine  hills,  round  the 
Colosseum,  by  the  three  columns  that  are  left  of  the  Forum  of 
Nerva,  into  the  gay  Corso,  passing  thus,  suddenly,  as  we  do 
almost  every  day,  from  amidst  the  gigantic  brown  fragments  that 
silently  tell  of  the  might  of  ancient  Rome,  into  the  bustle  and 
ostentation  of  a  modern  capital.  I  spent  an  hour  afterwards  in 
Thorwaldsen's  studio,  with  a  still  growing  enjoyment.  Great 
Poems  are  incarnations  of  a  nation's  mind,  whence  in  weaker 
times  it  may  draw  nourishment  to  help  to  renew  its  vigor.  The 
creations  of  Shakspeare  and  Milton  rear  themselves  the  steadfast 
mountains  of  the  mental  world  of  England,  up  to  which  the  peo- 
ple can  at  all  times  ascend  to  inhale  a  bracing  air.  So,  too,  after- 
sculptors  will  be  able  to  refresh  themselves  at  the  clear  fountain 
of  Thorwaldsen's  purity  and  simplicity. 

THURSDAY,  March  16th. 

We  drove  out  to  the  new  St.  Paul's  that  they  are  building  on  the 
site  of  the  old  one,  more  than  a  mile  out  of  the  St,  Paul  Gate. 
This  Church  is  one  of  the  largest,  and  the  Pope  is  rebuilding  and 
adorning  it  in  a  style  of  unmatched  magnificence.  Nations  and 
systems  cannot,  any  more  than  individuals,  pause  in  their  career. 
Each  must  fulfil  its  destiny.  From  the  bosom  of  Eternity  they 
are  launched  forth,  to  perform  a  given  circuit,  and  long  after 
they  have  culminated,  they  continue,  though  under  relaxed  mo- 
mentum, to  give  out  sparks  of  the  original  fire,  and  decline  con- 
sistently to  their  end.  The  Papal  State  is  loaded  with  a  growing 
debt ;  Rome  has  churches  enough  for  ten  times  its  actual  popula- 


VIEW  FROM  THE  CAPITOL.  141 

tion ;  advancing  civilisation  rejects  more  and  more  the  sensuous 
as  an  auxiliary  to  the  spiritual.  Yet,  at  an  enormous  cost,  this 
church  is  re-erected,  dazzling  with  pillars  and  marble  and  gold, 
capacious  to  hold  tens  of  thousands,  though  distant  from  the  city 
in  the  blighted  Campagna ;  a  token  not  only  that  the  spirit  of 
Romanism  is  unchanged,  but  that  it  has  yet  the  will  and  vigor, 
in  the  face  of  material  difficulties,  and  in  defiance  of  civilisation, 
to  manifest  itself  in  mediaeval  pomp  and  unchristian  magnificence. 
On  getting  back  within  the  walls  of  the  city,  we  turned  into 
the  Via  Appia,  and  stopped  at  the  tomb  of  the  Scipios,  down  into 
which  I  groped  with  a  lighted  candle  twenty  or  thirty  feet  below 
the  present  surface,  in  a  labyrinth  of  low  vaults,  where  I  saw 
several  vertical  slabs  with  inscriptions.  After  dinner,  we  drove 
to  the  Villa  Mattei,  whence  there  is  a  fine  view  southward,  of  the 
aqueducts  and  mountains.  Late  in  the  afternoon  I  ascended  to 
the  top  of  the  tower  of  the  Capitol.  The  sky  was  cloudless,  and 
the  unparalleled  scene  seemed  to  float  in  the  purple  light.  Moun- 
tain, plain,  and  city,  the  eye  took  in  at  a  sweep.  From  fifteen  to 
forty  miles  in  more  than  a  semicircle  ranged  the  Appenines,  the 
nearest  clusters  being  the  Alban  and  the  Sabine  Hills.  Contract, 
ing  the  view  within  these,  the  eye  embraced  the  dim  Campagna, 
in  the  midst  of  which,  right  under  me,  lay  the  noisy  city  beside 
its  silent  mother.  Looking  down  from  such  an  elevation,  the 
seven  hills,  unless  you  know  well  their  position,  are  not  traceable  ; 
and  most  of  the  ruins,  not  having,  as  when  seen  from  the  plain, 
the  relief  of  the  sky,  grow  indistinct ;  only  the  Colosseum  towere 
broadly  before  you,  a  giant  among  dwarfs,  challenging  your 
wonder  always  at  the  colossal  grandeur  of  Imperial  Rome.  In 
the  west,  St.  Peter's  broke  the  line  of  the  horizon.  From 
countless  towers,  spires,  cupolas,  columns,  obelisks,  long  shadows 
fell  upon  the  sea  of  tiled  roof.  The  turbid  Tiber  showed  itself 
here  and  there,  winding  as  of  old  through  the  throng.  I  gazed 
until,  the  sun  being  set,  the  mountains  began  to  fade,  the  ruins  to 


142  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

be  swallowed  up  in  the  brown  earth,  and  the  whole  fascinating 
scene  wore  that  lifeless  look  which  follows  immediately  the  sink- 
ing of  the  sun  below  the  horizon,  the  earth  seeming  suddenly  to 
fall  asleep. 

FRIDAY,  March  17th. 

Through  the  high  walls  that  enclose  the  gardens  and  Villas  in 
Italy,  we  drove  out  to  the  Villa  Albani,  reputed  the  richest  about 
Rome  in  antique  sculpture.  There  is  a  statue  of  Tiberius,  which 
makes  him  shine  among  several  of  his  imperial  colleagues  in  grace 
and  manly  proportions,  a  distinction  which  he  probably  owes  to  the 
superiority  of  his  Artist ;  a  fragment  from  the  bas-reliefs  of  the 
Parthenon  at  Athens,  and  other  esteemed  antiques  in  half  size  and 
miniature,  amidst  a  legion  of  busts,  among  them  one  of  Themisto- 
cles,  of  much  character.  Unhappily,  on  these  occasions  you  can- 
not give  yourself  up  to  the  pleasure  of  believing  that  you  gaze  on 
the  features  of  one  of  the  great  ancients  ;  for  even  the  identity  of 
the  bust  is  seldom  unquestionable,  and  of  course  still  less  so  is 
the  likeness.  It  were  a  goodly  sight  to  behold  an  undoubted  por- 
trait of  Plato,  or  Socrates,  or  Brutus.  The  villa  is  in  a  florid 
style  of  architecture,  and  the  grounds  are  laid  out  in  straight 
walks  between  walls  of  evergreen.  The  day  was  balmy,  and 
the  parterre  walls  were  alive  with  lizards  darting  about  in  the 
sunshine.  We  next  drove  out  of  the  St.  John  Gate  to  get  a  near 
view  of  the  aqueducts,  which  have  been  well  likened  to  Giants 
striding  across  the  Campagna.  On  re-entering  the  Gate,  the  front 
of  St.  John  of  the  Lateran  presented  itself  very  grandly.  It  is 
purer  than  the  facade  of  St.  Peter's,  in  which  the  perpendicular 
continuity  is  broken,  a  fault  almost  universal  in  the  fronts  of  Ita- 
lian churches.  The  statues,  too,  on  the  St.  John,  from  being  co- 
lossal and  somewhat  crowded,  have  a  better  effect  than  statues  in 
that  position  generally  have. 

In  the  afternoon  we  drove   and  walked  in  the  grounds  of  the 


SC1ARRA  GALLERY.  143 


Villa  Borghese.  The  entire  circuit  is  at  least  two  miles,  and  the 
grounds  are  varied  both  by  art  and  nature.  Strangers  can  hardly 
be  sufficiently  grateful  to  the  family  that  opens  to  them  such  a 
resource.  I  should  have  stated,  when  speaking  of  the  statuary  in 
the  villa,  that  the  original  and  celebrated  Borghese  collection  of 
antiques  was  sold  to  the  Paris  Museum,  in  the  reign  of  Napoleon, 
for  thirteen  millions  of  francs.  The  present  collection  has  been 
made  since  that  period. 

SATURDAY,  March  18th. 

This  morning  we  began  with  the  Sciarra  Gallery,  one  of  the 
most  choice  in  the  world.  In  a  single  room,  not  more  than 
twenty-five  feet  square,  were  thirty  or  forty  pictures,  estimated  to 
be  worth  three  hundred  thousand  dollars,  comprising  master- 
pieces by  Titian,  Raphael,  Guido,  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  and  others. 
For  the  celebrated  Modesty  and  Charity  of  Leonardo,  the  size 
of  which  is  hardly  four  feet  by  three,  the  good-humored  old  keeper 
told  us  an  English  nobleman  offered  fifty  thousand  dollars.  These 
marvels  of  the  pencil  teach  with  glowing  emphasis,  that  the  es- 
sence of  the  Art  is  beauty.  If  this  be  a  truism,  the  crowds  of 
prosaic  works  one  daily  passes  justify  its  reiteration.  Thence 
we  went  to  Mount  Palatine,  to  explore  the  ruins  of  part  of  the 
Palace  of  the  Caesars,  adjoining  the  house  of  Augustus  which 
we  had  already  seen.  Each  of  his  successors  for  several  ge- 
nerations seems  to  have  enlarged  the  imperial  residence,  until, 
under  Nero,  it  spread  over  the  whole  of  the  Palatine  and  Cselian 
hills  and  part  of  the  Esquiline.  What  we  saw  to-day  covers  se- 
veral acres.  The  habitable  part,  of  which  there  are  only  left 
fragments  of  thick  brick  walls,  was  built  on  high  arches.  The 
view  from  the  top  embraces  the  greater  part  of  the  ancient  and 
modern  cities,  extending  over  the  Campagna  to  the  mountains. 
'Tis  now  a  vegetable-garden,  and  where  Emperors  have  dined, 
grows  a  luxuriant  crop  of  artichokes.  A  bright-looking  woman, 


144  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

who  was  peeling  onions,  and  who  plucked  for  us  a  boquet  of  hya- 
cinths, told  us  that  she  paid  for  it  seventy  dollars  annual  rent. 
From  the  Palace  we  drove  to  the  tomb  of  Augustus,  where 
among  other  bones  we  saw  the  half  of  a  skull,  which  the  keeper  • 
protested  was  ancient  Roman,  and  was  ready  to  protest  to  be  that 
of  Augustus. 

In  the  afternoon  we  went  to  the  rooms  of  Maes,  a  Belgian 
Artist  of  talent,  and  then  drove  out  to  the  church  on  Monte  Mario, 
whence  the  view  is  very  fine.  A  lad,  who  had  care  of  the  church, 
told  us,  that  in  the  Convent  adjoining  lived  two  Dominican  friars, 
there  not  being  means  to  support  more.  Each  of  them  receives 
five  dollars  a  month,  besides  twenty  cents  a  day  for  saying  mass, 
making  about  eleven  dollars  a  month  to  each  for  clothing  and 
food.  A  man  here  can  keep  his  body  well  covered  with  flesh  for 
ten  cents  a  day.  His  meat  will  be  chiefly  maccaroni  and  his 
drink  water,  a  good  fare  for  longevity.  Be  it  as  it  may,  there  is 
no  class  of  people  in  Italy  with  fuller  skins  than  the  friars. 

In  the  evening  we  saw,  at  about  seven  o'clock,  the  long  bright 
tail  of  a  comet. 

SUNDAY,  March  19th. 

This  morning  I  heard  a  sermon  at  the  Church  of  the  Jesuits. 
The  subject  was  the  perfections  of  Joseph  as  husband  and  father, 
who,  the  preacher  often  repeated,  had  all  the  realities  of  the  ma- 
trimonial union  without  its  chief  function,  and  performed  all  the 
functions  of  a  father  without  having  the  reality.  He  enforced, 
happily  and  with  pure  feeling,  from  the  example  of  Joseph,  the 
sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie,  and  the  supreme  obligation  of  duty. 
It  was  a  practical,  animated,  sound  discourse,  which  commanded 
earnest  attention  from  his  audience,  that  consisted  of  the  middle 
and  lower  classes,  and  was  very  numerous,  filling  nearly  the 
whole  area  of  the  large  church. 

In  the  afternoon,  we  went  to  hear  a  celebrated  French  J 


FRENCH  JESUIT. 


preach,  at  the  church  called  St.  Louis  of  the  Fi 
course  of  more  than  an  hour,  to  which  a  large,  educated  audi- 
tory listened  with  unwearied  attention,  the  preacher  summed  up 
with  skill  and  eloquence  the  chief  arguments  of  the  Roman  Ca- 
tholic Church  against  Protestantism.  In  an  emphatic  and  adroit 
manner  he  presented  the  best  that  can  be  said  in  favor  of  the  unity 
and  infallibility  of  the  Roman  Church.  He  laid  down,  that  Re- 
ligion could  be  preserved  but  by  one  of  three  means ;  either,  first, 
by  God  making  a  separate  revelation  thereof  to  each  individual 
man ;  or  secondly,  by  his  having  embodied  it  in  a  book,  which 
each  was  to  interpret  for  himself;  or  thirdly,  by  instituting  a 
Church  to  whose  guardianship  he  committed  it.  After  endeavor- 
ing to  show,  that  the  third  was  the  only  means  consistent  with  the 
simplicity  of  the  divine  government,  he  went  on  to  set  forth,  that 
Christ  established  one  Church,  that  that  Church  was  by  its  nature, 
origin,  and  design,  infallible ;  and  in  a  brilliant  sophistical  passage 
he  attempted  to  demonstrate  the  inherent  necessity  of  intolerance 
towards  doctrine,  concluding  with  the  position,  that  without  such 
a  church  there  would  be  no  faith,  no  religion. 

What  a  pitiful  piece  of  work  were  man,  if  to  his  fellow-man  he 
owed  the  very  enjoyment  of  his  highest  faculty.  How  ignoble 
and  parasitical  must  that  Jesuit  deem  his  brother  men  !  But  it  is 
just  and  inevitable,  that  they  who  by  men  have  been  unduly  ex- 
alted, should  look  down  upon  those  who  have  bowed  the  neck 
under  their  yoke.  Without  any  direct  knowledge  of  the  fact,  it 
might  be  inferred,  that  no  class  of  men  have  a  lower  opinion  of 
mankind  than  the  Romish  priesthood.  No  religion  without  the 
Church !  Why,  the  Roman  and  all  other  churches  that  have  ever 
existed  or  will  ever  exist,  are  effects  of  religion,  not  its  cause, — 
the  creatures  of  man,  not  his  masters — and,  as  such,  obsequious 
ever  to  his  movements  ;  sucking  blood  when  he  has  been  cruel, 
relentless  when  he  has  been  intolerant,  humane  when  he  has  be- 
come humanized ;  presumptuous  towards  his  inactivity,  humble 
8 


146  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

towards  his  independence ;  aristocratic  in  one  country,  demo- 
cratic in  another — here  upholding  slavery,  there  denouncing  it ; 
always  a  representative  of  the  temporary  condition  of  society. 
Why  were  the  Catholic  priests  more  openly  rapacious  and  lust, 
ful  before  the  Reformation  than  since  ?  Why  is  the  priest  in 
Spain  different  from  the  priest  in  Sweden,  or  the  Catholic  priest 
of  the  United  States  more  true  to  his  chief  vow  than  his  fellow 
in  Italy  ?  There  is  but  one  unity,  and  that  is  the  universal  in- 
nateness  in  man  of  the  religious  sentiment.  The  form  wherein 
it  clothes,  the  creed  wherein  it  embodies  itself,  depend  upon  civi- 
lisation, temperament,  climate,  policy,  and  to  these  the  priest  ine- 
vitably fashions  himself.  But  as  effects  reflect  often  back  upon 
their  causes,  creeds  and  hierarchies  re-act,  with  more  or  less 
power,  upon  Religion  itself;  and  it  is  a  symptom  of  a  baleful 
influence,  and  of  an  unmanly  passiveness  in  man,  when  so  de- 
grading a  doctrine  gets  to  be  part  of  his  creed,  as  that  he  owes 
his  religion  to  his  priest. 

To  learn  what  priestcraft  is,  we  need  not  however  go  so  far  as 
Catholic  Italy,  although  there  its  deformity  is  the  most  revolting 
in  Christendom.  Some  very  unequivocal  exhibitions  of  it  may 
be  seen  among  the  Protestant  isms  of  our  country,  notwithstand- 
ing that  the  mass  of  our  population  is  in  mental  freedom  and 
strength  raised  above  that  of  Europe,  and  that  comparatively, 
through  the  severance  of  Church  and  State,  we  enjoy  religious 
liberty.  Priesthood,  performing  a  necessary  part  in  human  soci- 
eties, is,  like  the  other  institutions  for  the  furtherance  of  man's 
estate,  subject  under  all  forms  and  circumstances  to  corruptions. 
The  benefits  resulting  from  a  priesthood,  like  the  benefits  result- 
ing from  a  magistracy,  are  purely  those  of  organization.  In  the 
earlier  stages  of  culture,  or  when  humanity  is  partially  developed, 
priests  form  a  distinct  authorized  power,  which,  being  men,  it  is 
of  course  their  tendency  to  abuse.  As  society  through  individual 
culture  developes  itself,  this  organization  becomes  more  and  more 


THORWALDSEN'S  ST.  JOHN.  147 

merged  in  the  general  social  one.  Priests  are  first  dropped  by 
the  state  and  then  by  individuals,  and  the  religious  element,  re- 
incorporated,  as  it  were,  into  the  whole  nature,  receives  its  culti- 
vation along  with  the  other  nobler  sentiments  of  man.  Rituals 
and  Hierarchies  are  but  the  forms  through  which  for  a  time  it 
suits  Religion  to  express  and  cherish  herself;  they  are  transient, 
only  Religion  is  perennial.  Forms,  in  their  healthiest  state, 
waste  somewhat  of  the  substance  they  are  designed  to  set  forth. 
At  their  birth,  they  are  tainted  with  insincerity ;  when  mature, 
they  grow  hypocritical ;  and  in  their  old  age,  they  get  to  be  bare- 
faced  falsehoods,  and  then  they  die.  In  religion,  as  in  politics, 
and  in  all  things,  man  becomes  weak  in  proportion  as  he  surren- 
ders himself  to  the  power  or  guidance  of  others.  This  surrender 
is  totally  different  from  helpful  co-operation,  as  well  as  from  re- 
ciprocal subordination  according  to  inborn  superiorities. 

MONDAY,  March  20th. 

At  Thorwaldsen's  studio,  I  stood  again  long  before  the  St.  John 
preaching  in  the  wilderness.  This  is  a  group  of  twelve  parts, 
ranged  in  a  line  declining  on  either  side  from  the  central  figure, 
to  suit  its  destination,  which  is  the  tympanum  of  a  church 
in  Copenhagen.  St.  John,  in  his  left  hand  a  cross,  which 
serves  him  too  as  a  staff,  and  his  right  raised  towards  Heaven, 
stands  in  the  centre,  with  a  countenance  mild  and  earnest,  his 
look  and  attitude  well  expressing  the  solemnity  of  the  tidings  he 
proclaims. 

The  first  figure  on  his  right  is  a  man,  apparently  about  thirty, 
with  the  left  foot  on  a  high  stone,  and  one  elbow  on  his  knee,  his 
chin  resting  in  his  hand.  His  fixed  look  is  not  turned  up  as  if  to 
catch  the  falling  words  of  the  speaker,  but  is  outward  as  though 
his  mind  were  busy  with  something  that  had  gone  before. — Next 
to  him  is  a  group  of  two  figures,  the  first  a  turbaned  man  of  mid- 
dle age,  with  hands  crossed  at  his  waist,  in  the  simplest  erect 


148  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

attitude  of  deep  attention,  his  closely  draped  light  body  in  the 
most  perfect  repose,  while  his  bearded  countenance  is  intent  upon 
that  of  St.  John  with  the  animated  expression  of  one  accustomed 
to  thought,  and  whose  mind  is  now  deeply  wrought  upon  by  the 
words  he  hears.  Behind  him,  and  gently  resting  on  his  shoul- 
der, is  a  beardless  youth,  like  the  elder  one  before  him,  who  may 
be  his  father,  attentive  but  passive. — The  third  figure  is  a  mother, 
half  kneeling,  behind  her  a  boy  seven  or  eight  years  of  age,  with 
chin  on  his  hands  that  are  crossed  on  her  right  shoulder. — The 
fourth,  an  old  man  seated,  with  long  beard  and  turban,  a  tranquil 
venerable  figure. — The  fifth,  and  last  to  the  right  of  St.  John,  is 
a  youth  recumbent,  supporting  his  upturned  head  with  his  left 
arm. 

The  first  figure  on  the  left  of  St.  John  is  a  boy  about  fifteen, 
looking  up  into  his  face  with  half  open  mouth  and  a  beaming 
expression,  as  if  the  words  he  was  listening  to  had  unlocked  his 
soul. — Next  to  him  is  a  middle-aged  priest,  with  both  hands 
before  his  breast  resting  on  a  staff.  His  countenance  is  strong 
and  rugged,  and  his  brows  are  knit  as  if  his  mind  were  in  a  state 
of  resistance  to  what  he  heard. — The  third  figure  is  a  hunter. 
He  looks  melted  by  the  preacher,  and  has  an  aspect  of  devout 
acquiescence.  By  a  band  he  holds  a  fine  dog,  upon  which  is 
fixed  the  attention  of, — the  fourth  group,  two  bright  children,  a 
boy  and  girl  of  nine  and  eight,  their  faces  alive  with  childish 
pleasure. — Behind  them,  the  fifth  figure,  is  a  female  seated,  their 
mother  apparently,  who  is  restraining  before  her  a  third  younger 
child. — The  sixth  and  last  figure  is  a  shepherd,  recumbent,  with 
open  mouth  and  joyful  look. 

This  subject  is  peculiarly  fitted  to  sculpture,  from  the  union  of 
perfect  bodily  repose  with  mental  animation.  The  conception, 
which  is  the  happiest  possible  for  such  a  group ;  the  ease,  life, 
correctness  and  grace  of  the  figures ;  the  contrasts  in  their 
postures,  ages,  conditions,  sex,  expression  ;  the  calm  power  evi- 


TASSO'S  HEAD.  149 


dent  in  the  fertility  and  purity  of  the  invention  ;  the  excellence 
of  the  execution  ;  the  distribution  of  the  parts,  and  the  vivid  cha- 
racter of  each  figure,  make  this  work  one  of  the  noblest  of  modern 
sculpture. 

In  the  afternoon  we  went  through  the  Gallery  of  the  Vatican. 
From  an  unnecessary  and  ungracious  arrangement,  in  order  to 
see  the  pictures,  you  are  obliged  to  walk  nearly  the  whole  length 
of  the  range  of  galleries  in  the  two  stories,  a  distance  of  more 
than  a  mile,  so  that  you  are  fatigued  when  you  come  in  front  of 
the  pictures,  where,  moreover,  there  are  no  seats. — We  went 
afterwards  to  the  church  of  St.  Onofrio,  not  far  from  St.  Peter's. 
Here  I  saw  a  representation  in  wax  of  the  head  of  Tasso,  from  a 
mask  taken  after  death.  Were  there  any  doubt  as  to  the  genu- 
ineness of  this  head,  the  cranium  were  almost  sufficient  to  dispel 
it,  being  just  such  a  one  as  is  fitted  to  the  shoulders  of  an  excita- 
ble poet.  The  monks  keep  it  in  their  library.  Another  treasure 
they  possess  is  a  Madonna  and  child  in  fresco,  by  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  which,  notwithstanding  the  injury  of  time,  breathes  forth 
the  inspiration  imparted  to  it  by  that  wonderful  genius.  Neither 
this,  nor  the  mask  of  Tasso,  both  being  in  the  convent  to  which 
the  church  is  attached,  can  be  seen  by  women,  except  through 
special  permission  from  the  Pope.  Below  in  the  church  is  Tas- 
so's  Tomb. 

TUESDAY,  March  21st. 

At  the  rooms  of  Vellati,  an  Italian  painter  of  landscapes  and 
hunting  pfeces,  we  saw  this  morning  the  Magdalen  of  Correggio 
recently  brought  to  light,  Vellati  having  discovered  it  under 
another  picture  which  had  been  painted  over  it,  and  which  he 
bought  for  fifteen  dollars.  With  great  labor,  by  means  of  the 
point  of  a  needle,  the  upper  painting  was  removed  without  injur- 
ing the  gem  beneath  it.  Its  size  is  about  fifteen  inches  by  twelve, 
and  the  price  asked  for  it  is  five  thousand  pounds  sterling ;  but 


350  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

its  value  cannot  be  counted  in  money.  It  is  the  duplicate  of  the 
celebrated  picture  at  Dresden.  In  the  same  rooms  was  a  fine 
landscape  by  Rembrandt. 

In  the  Piazza  del  Popolo  is  a  meagre  exhibition  of  pictures,  the 
best  painters  always  drawing  amateurs  to  their  private  rooms. 
We  went  afterwards  to  the  Farnesian  gardens,  which  are  entered 
from  the  Forum,  to  see  remains  of  the  palaces  of  Nero  and  Cali- 
gula and  of  the  House  of  Augustus.  We  groped  down  into  the 
baths  of  Livia.  We  walked  through  the  Forum  to  the  Colosseum, 
and  afterwards  in  the  Borghese  Gardens. 

WEDNESDAY,  March  22d. 

This  morning  we  saw  the  Cenci  again.  What  a  gift  of  genius, 
to  reproduce  such  a  face  in  all  its  tremulous  life  !  With  a  deep, 
awful,  innocent  look,  it  seems  to  peer  into  your  soul  and  pray 
you  for  sympathy.  Doubt  has  been  thrown  upon  its  genuineness. 
If  it  be  a  creation  and  not  a  portrait,  it  is  the  more  wonderful. 
Its  character  is  so  perfectly  in  unison  with  the  mysterious  heart- 
rending  story  of  Beatrice  Cenci,  that,  had  it  been  discovered  long 
years  after  her  tragic  end  and  without  any  clue  to  its  origin,  it 
might  and  probably  would  have  been  appropriated  to  her.  We 
drove  afterwards  to  the  church  of  St.  Peter  in  chains,  to  see  for 
the  second  time  the  Moses  of  Michael  Angelo.  I  observed  to-day, 
that  with  the  instinct  of  genius  (in  the  heads  of  the  antique  the 
ear  is  further  forward)  he  has  placed  the  ear  far  back,  which 
heightens  the  intellectual  character  of  the  head.  In  gazing  at 
this  powerful  statue  again,  I  felt  that  in  Art  'tis  only  beauty  that 
ensures  constancy.  The  Moses  is  grand  and  imposing,  but  one 
does  not  look  forward  to  a  third  visit  with  that  anticipation  of 
growing  enjoyment,  with  which  one  goes  back  to  the  Apollo  or 
the  Laocoon.  Liberate  the  Laocoon  from  the  constraints  of  force 
and  pain,  and  it  would  stand  before  you  a  body  pre-eminent  for 
beauty  and  justness  of  proportion.  On  the  other  hand,  suppose 


CARDINAL  FESCH'S  GALLERY.  151 

the  body  a  common  one,   and  the  work  sinks  to   a   revolting 
mimicry  of  corporeal  suffering. 

One  who  resides  long  in  Rome  is  liable  to  be  sucked  back  into 
the  past.  Behind  him  is  an  ocean  of  movement  and  thought,  out 
of  which  rise  countless  fragments  and  monuments,  that  daily 
tempt  him  to  exploration.  A  man  might  here  lean  his  whole 
being  against  antiquity  and  find  it  a  life-long  support.  The  pre- 
sent becomes  but  a  starting  point  whence  he  would  set  out  on 
voyages  into  the  past. — Walked  out  at  the  Porta  Pia. 

THURSDAY,  March  23d. 

This  morning  we  went  to  the  Villa  Negroni,  the  neglected 
grounds  of  which  are  in  great  part  occupied  by  a  vegetable  gar- 
den. The  sun  was  just  enough  veiled  by  thin  clouds  to  make 
walking  agreeable,  and  although  the  Villa  is  far  within  the  walls, 
we  strolled  for  half  an  hour  over  twenty  or  thirty  acres  of  arti- 
chokes, onions  and  peas,  enjoying  a  wide  sweep  of  the  mountains. 
— We  then  went  to  see  Cardinal  Fesch's  gallery,  containing  alto- 
gether twenty  thousand  pictures.  Exempt  from  the  officious 
promptings  of  a  Cicerone,  we  lounged  from  room  to  room,  choosing 
for  ourselves,  and  appealing  to  the  voluminous  catalogue  to  back 
our  vision  or  resolve  doubts.  After  one  has  obtained,  by  famili- 
arity with  galleries,  some  knowledge  of  the  best  masters,  it  is 
delightful  to  be  let  loose  in  this  way  upon  a  new  collection.  This 
one  is  celebrated  for  Flemish  and  Dutch  pictures. 

Great  part  of  the  afternoon  we  passed  among  the  statues  of  the 
Vatican.  The  Perseus  looks  as  if  Canova  had  studied  the  antique 
more  than  nature.  The  one  sole  mistress  in  Art  being  Nature, 
all  that  the  artist  can  gain  from  the  works  of  others  is  the  best 
mode  of  seizing  the  spirit  of  the  one  common  model,  of  compassing 
her  beauties,  so  that  he  shall  be  able  to  reproduce  what  shall  be 
at  once  ideal  and  natural.  Not  to  imitate  their  forms,  but  to  ex- 
tract from  them  how  their  authors  imitated  the  best  of  nature  sc 


152  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

truly,  should  be  the  aim  of  the  young  sculptor  in  scanning  the 
Apollo  or  Laocoon.  If  he  can  make  the  wondrous  work  before 
him  reveal  the  process  of  the  worker,  then  he  can  profit  by  the 
example.  If  he  cannot,  then  he  has  not  the  innate  gifts  of  a  high 
artist.  But  this  process  of  the  great  masters  he  will  not  only  fail 
to  detect,  by  copying  the  forms  that  have  come  from  human  hands, 
but  by  such  servility  (for  it  is  servility,  be  the  model  Phidias 
himself)  he  weakens  his  original  powers,  and  gradually  disables 
himself  from  standing  up  face  to  face  before  his  living  mistress. 
To  the  young  sculptor,  the  antique  should  be  an  armory  where 
he  can  fortify  his  native  powers  for  the  loving  conflict  he  has  to 
wage  with  vigorous  beaming  nature.  In  the  Perseus,  'tis  appa- 
rent the  free  play  of  the  artist's  mind  was  under  check.  You 
behold  the  result  of  fine  powers  in  partial  servitude.  Neverthe- 
less, both  it  and  the  boxers  beside  it  are  noble  works.  I  went 
next  to  the  Capitol,  whence,  after  gazing  at  the  Gladiator,  and 
examining  the  busts  of  Brutus  and  Caesar,  I  walked  down  into 
the  Forum  about  the  base  of  the  Capitol,  among  piles  of  broken 
columns. 

FRIDAY,  March  24th. 

This  morning  I  paced  St.  Peter's  to  get  for  myself  its  dimen- 
sions. Walking  without  effort,  I  counted  two  hundred  and  sixty 
steps  as  the  length  of  the  great  nave,  thirty-seven  as  its  width, 
and  one  hundred  and  eighty  as  that  of  the  transept.  I  counted 
twenty-six  altars.  Its  statues,  mostly  of  gigantic  size,  and  its 
mosaic  pictures,  I  did  not  undertake  to  count.  It  is  reputed  to 
have  cost  about  fifty  millions  of  dollars. 

Do  not  Painting  and  Sculpture  require  for  their  excellence  a 
predominance  of  the  sensuous  over  the  meditative  ?  The  Catholic 
religion,  the  parent,  or,  at  least,  the  foster-mother  of  modern 
painting,  appeals  largely  to  the  senses ;  and  the  Grecian  my- 
thology, the  nurse  of  ancient  sculpture,  still  more  so.  The  pre. 


THE  POPE.  153 


sent  tendency  is  towards  the  spiritual  and  rational,  and  the  fore- 
most  people  of  Europe,  the  English,  possessing  the  richest  written 
poetry  in  the  world,  is  poor  in  the  plastic  Arts.  The  great 
features  of  the  German,  English  and  American  mind,  are  deep 
religious  and  moral  emotions,  the  fruits  of  whose  alliance  with 
reason  are  far-reaching  ideas  and  wide-embracing  principles, 
which  sway  the  thoughts  and  acts  of  men,  but  which  can  be  but 
faintly  represented  in  bodily  images. 

This  sounds  well  enough,  but  great  modern  names  refute  it. 
Your  fair-looking  edifice  of  logic  proves  but  a  house  of  paper 
before  the  breath  of  great  facts. 

SATURDAY,  March  25th. 

We  went  to  look  at  the  continuation  of  Cardinal  Fesch's  collec- 
tion of  pictures  in  a  neighboring  Palace,  but  all  the  best  are  in 
the  first  which  we  saw  a  few  days  since.  The  keeper  unlocked 
a  large  room  in  which  pictures  were  piled  away  in  solid  masses 
one  against  the  other.  I  noted  No.  16,059  on  one  of  them. 
Fourteen  hundred  dollars  a  year  rent  is  paid  for  the  rooms  the 
whole  collection  occupies. — We  then  went  to  the  Minerva  Church 
to  witness  a  religious  ceremony,  in  which  the  Pope  is  carried  on 
the  shoulders  of  his  attendants.  We  got  into  the  church  in  time 
to  have  a  good  view  of  him  seated  in  a  rich  throne-like  chair, 
which  rose  just  above  the  dense  crowd,  borne  rocking  along,  as 
on  a  disturbed  sea  of  human  heads.  Carried  on  either  side  of  him 
were  two  large  fans  of  peacock's  feathers,  which  might  be  called 
the  sails  of  the  golden  vessel.  We  afterwards  walked  in  the 
Gregorian  Gardens,  a  public  walk  near  the  Colosseum,  between 
the  Cselian  and  Palatine  Hills. — In  the  afternoon  we  drove  out  to 
see  the  Torlonia  Villa. 

Canova's  statuary  wants  what  may  be  called  the  under  move- 
ment, which  Thorwaldsen's  has,  and  which  is  by  no  means  given 
by  pronouncing  the  muscles,  but  by  a  union  of  sympathy  for  vital 
8* 


154  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

forms  with  clean  firm  manipulation.     In  Powers  this  union  is 
more  intimate  than  in  any  modern  sculptor. 

SUNDAY,  March  26th. 

We  walked  this  morning  on  the  Pincian  Hill,  and  in  the  after- 
noon drove  three  miles  out  of  the  Porta  Pia  to  a  Roman  ruin, 
whence  there  is  a  fine  view  of  the  mountains  and  over  the  Cam- 
pagna  all  round.  Behind  us  was  Rome,  and  stretching  out  from 
it  over  the  plain  towards  the  mountains  were  the  aqueducts. 

In  Italy,  the  past  is  a  load  chained  to  the  feet  of  the  present. 
The  people  drags  after  it,  like  a  corpse,  the  thought,  feeling,  act 
of  by-gone  generations.  Tradition  comes  down  like  the  current 
through  a  narrow  strait,  behind  which  is  an  ocean.  Here, 
more  than  in  most  parts  of  old  Europe,  the  health-giving  trans- 
formations go  on  languidly  ;  the  old  is  not  consumed  to  give  place 
to  the  hourly  created  new.  The  dead  and  effete  is  in  the  way 
of  the  quick  and  refreshing.  Hence,  languor  and  irregularity  in 
the  currents  of  life,  causing  in  the  body-politic,  obstructions  and 
stoppages,  and  all  sorts  of  social,  religious,  and  political  dyspep- 
sias, congestions,  rheumatisms,  constipations. 

MONBAY,  March  27th. 

Returned  with  renewed  enjoyment  to  Thorwaldsen's  studio. 
Naturalness  and  ease  are  his  characteristics.  He  has  not  a  very 
high  ideal  of  beauty,  and  seems  to  avoid  the  nude,  which  is  the 
severest  test  of  the  artist. — Thence  we  went  to  the  Church  of  St. 
Lorenzo,  in  Lucina,  where  a  fine  voice  was  singing.  To  strive, 
by  such  factitious  ceremonies  as  those  of  the  Romish  worship,  to 
symbolize  the  divine,  is  a  degradation  of  the  holy  that  is  in  us. 
It  is  summoning  the  solemn  spirits  of  the  soul  to  take  part  in  a 
fantastic  pageant  of  the  senses. — We  walked  afterwards  in  the 
Gregorian  Gardens,  and  on  the  ruins  of  the  Palace  of  the  Caesars. 
Thence  to  look  once  more  at  the  marvels  of  the  Sciarra  Gallery 


FRASCATI.  155 


— In  the  afternoon,  on  coming  out  of  Crawford's  studio,  we  drove 
over  the  river  to  St.  Peter's. 

TUESDAY,  March  28th. 

We  set  out  at  nine  for  Frascati.  Three  miles  from  the  St. 
John's  Gate  we  passed  under  ^n  aqueduct,  still  used,  and  near 
the  erect  ruins  of  another.  The  Campagna,  without  trees  or  en- 
closures, and  almost  without  houses,  is  much  less  level  than  it 
looks  from  the  heights  in  Rome.  We  passed  several  shepherds 
with  their  flocks,  and  parties  of  peasants  ploughing,  with  large, 
long-horned,  long-legged,  meek,  white  oxen.  The  plough  had 
one  upright  handle,  and  by  this  the  men  supported  their  weight 
on  it,  for  the  purpose  of  turning  up  a  deeper  furrow  of  the  dark 
soil.  As  we  drew  near  to  Frascati,  the  Alban  mountains,  which 
from  Rome  present  themselves  in  a  compact  cluster,  broke  up 
into  separate  peaks,  the  hill  sides  covered  with  olive  trees,  which 
looked  darker  and  more  leafy  than  I  ever  saw  them,  and 
Villas  with  their  wooded  grounds  shining  out  distinctly.  From 
Frascati,  which  is  not  half  way  up  the  range  of  mountains,  you 
have  a  clear  view  of  Rome,  twelve  miles  distant,  and  of  the  Medi- 
terranean. Immediately  after  arriving,  we  set  out  for  Tusculum, 
which  lies  almost  two  miles  higher  up,  near  the  summit  of  one 
of  the  peaks.  Before  we  got  half  way  rain  began  to  fall,  and  the 
sky  was  entirely  overcast  when  we  reached  the  ruins,  consisting 
of  an  amphitheatre  and  part  of  the  walls  of  the  ancient  city  of 
Tusculum.  Descending,  we  were  glad  to  take  shelter  in  Cicero's 
house,  which  is  on  the  other  side  of  the  ridge.  What  is  left  of  it, 
is  six  or  eight  deep  arched  rooms  in  a  row,  without  direct  com- 
munication with  one  another,  and  all  pointing  south  on  a  passage 
way  or  portico.  My  imagination  refused  to  bring  Cicero  before 
me  otherwise  than  as  looking  out  from  his  arches  impatiently  on 
a  rainy  day.  In  a  hard  shower  we  descended  to  the  tavern,  and 
after  dinner  drove  rapidly  back  to  Rome. 


156  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

WEDNESDAY,  March  29th. 

What  is  called  the  bust  of  young  Augustus,  in  the  Vatican,  is 
much  like  Napoleon  when  he  was  General,  We  walked  round 
the  Rotunda,  where  are  the  Perseus  of  Canova,  the  Antinous,  the 
Laocoon,  and  the  Apollo.  What  a  company  !  and  what  a  privi- 
lege it  is  to  behold  them.  We  drove  afterwards  to  the  Colosseum 
and  for  the  first  time  ascended  among  the  arches.  Its  vastness 
and  massive  grandeur  never  cease  to  astonish  me. 

In  the  afternoon,  when  we  had  looked  at  the  pictures  in  the 
Academy  of  St.  Luc,  we  drove  to  the  Pincian  Hill  at  five.  The 
whole  Heaven  was  strewn  with  fragments  of  a  thunderstorm. 
Through  them  the  hue  of  the  sky  was  unusually  brilliant,  and 
along  the  clear  western  horizon  of  a  pearly  green.  Standing  at 
the  northern  extremity  of  the  Hill,  we  had,  to  the  south,  the  maze 
of  pinnacles,  cupolas,  towers,  columns,  obelisks,  that  strike  up  out 
of  the  wide  expanse  of  mellow  building ;  to  the  right,  the  sun  and 
St.  Peter's  ;  and,  to  the  left,  a  rural  view  into  the  grounds  of  the 
Borghese  Villa,  where,  over  a  clump  of  lofty  pines,  lay  the  darkest 
remnants  of  the  storm,  seemingly  resting  on  their  broad  flat  sum- 
mits. The  gorgeous  scene  grew  richer  each  moment  that  we 
gazed,  till  the  whole  city  and  its  fleecy  canopy  glowed  in  purple. 
We  walked  slowly  towards  the  great  stairway,  and  paused  on  its 
top  as  the  sun  was  sinking  below  the  horizon.  'Twas  an  Italian 
sunset  after  a  storm,  with  Rome  for  the  foreground. 

As,  after  returning  to  our  lodging,  I  sat  in  the  bland  twilight, 
full  of  the  feeling  produced  by  such  a  spectacle,  in  such  a  spot 
and  atmosphere,  from  the  ante-room  came  the  sound  of  a  harp 
from  fingers  that  were  moved  by  the  soul  for  music,  which  is 
almost  as  common  here  as  speech.  After  playing  two  sweet  airs, 
it  ceased  :  it  had  come  unbidden  and  unannounced,  and  so  it  went. 
This  was  wanted  to  complete  the  day,  although  before  it  began  I 
did  not  feel  the  want  of  anything.  There  are  rare  moments  of 
Heaven  on  Earth,  which,  but  for  our  perversity,  might  be  frequent 


ST.  MICHAEL.  157 


hours,  and  sanctify  and  lighten  each  day,  so  full  is  Nature  of 
gifts  and  blessings,  were  the  heart  but  kept  open  to  them.  But 
we  close  our  hearts  with  pride  and  ambition,  and  all  kinds  of 
greeds  and  selfishness,  and  try  to  be  content  with  postponing 
Heaven  to  beyond  the  grave. 

THURSDAY,  March  30th. 

We  visited,  this  morning,  the  Hospital  of  St.  Michael,  an  im- 
mense establishment  for  the  support  and  instruction  of  orphans, 
and  an  asylum  for  aged  poor.  Tt  is  divided  into  four  compart- 
ments ;  for  aged  men,  of  whom  there  are  now  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five ;  for  aged  women,  one  hundred  and  twenty-five ;  for 
boys,  two  hundred  and  twenty ;  and  for  girls,  two  hundred  and 
seventy-five ;  making  altogether  seven  hundred  and  forty-five,  as 
the  present  number  of  its  inmates.  We  saw  a  woman  one  hun- 
dred and  three  years  old,  with  health  and  faculties  good.  The 
boys  are  taught  trades  and  the  liberal  arts,  and  are  entitled  to  the 
half  of  the  product  of  their  work,  which  is  laid  up  for  them,  and 
serves  as  a  capital  to  start  with  when  they  leave  the  institution  at 
the  age  of  twenty ;  besides  which,  each  one  receives  on  quitt'ng 
thirty  dollars  for  the  same  purpose.  The  girls  weave  and  work 
with  the  needle,  and,  if  they  marry,  receive  one  hundred  dollars 
dower,  and  two  hundred  if  they  go  into  a  convent.  They,  as 
well  as  the  boys,  are  taught  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  and 
vocal  music.  The  superintendant,  who  was  throughout  exceed- 
ingly obliging  and  affable,  let  us  hear  several  pieces  of  music, 
admirably  executed  by  a  number  of  the  boys. 

The  income  of  this  Institution,  from  foundations  made  chiefly 
by  former  Popes,  is  twenty-eight  thousand  dollars,  to  which  is 
added  upwards  of  five  thousand  paid  by  some  of  those  admitted 
into  its  walls,  or  by  their  patrons.  The  arrangements  and  admi- 
nistration seem  to  be  judicious.  Order,  industry,  and  contentment, 
were  visible  in  all  the  compartments.  It  is  a  noble  institution, 
which  does  honor  to  Rome. 


158  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

In  the  afternoon,  we  visited  the  Villa  Ludovisi,  in  olden  time 
the  garden  of  Sallust.  Among  several  fine  antique  statues,  that 
have  been  dug  up  in  the  grounds,  is  a  magnificent  colossal  head 
of  Juno.  I  afterwards  walked  home  from  the  Colosseum,  in  the 
warm  spring  air,  taking  a  look  on  the  way  at  the  Moses  of  Michael 
Angelo. 

FRIDAY,  March  31st. 

Through  narrow  lanes,  enclosed  by  high  garden  walls,  we 
walked  this  morning  on  Mount  Aventine.  In  the  afternoon,  we 
drove  out  to  the  grotto  and  grove  of  Egeria.  At  the  grotto, 
where  is  the  fountain,  they  pretend  to  show  the  stump  of  a  column 
of  the  original  portico,  and  the  trunk  of  a  statue  of  Numa  Pom- 
pilius,  in  whose  day  there  were  neither  porticos  nor  statues.  From 
this  spot  there  is  a  fine  view  towards  Frascati  and  the  hills.  On 
the  way,  we  stopped  at  a  church  without  the  walls,  where  a  friar 
showed  a  marble  slab,  indented  with  two  foot-prints,  which  he 
said  were  made  by  Jesus  Christ,  when  he  quitted  St.  Peter,  to 
whom  he  appeared  to  rebuke  St.  Peter  for  deserting  his  post  at 
Rome.  The  impressions  are  rudely  cut,  and  the  toes  of  the  feet 
are  all  nearly  square,  but  they  nevertheless  probably  keep  the 
poor  friar  and  some  of  his  brethren  in  food  and  fuel  the  year  round. 

The  ancient  sculptors  had  an  advantage  over  the  modern,  in 
the  profusion  of  poetical  subjects  ;  for  every  deity  of  their  pro- 
lific mythology  is  poetical,  that  is,  unites  in  itself  all  the  perfec- 
tions of  a  class,  and  stands  as  the  ideal  representative  or  symbol 
of  wants,  desires,  or  ideas.  The  modern  artist  is  tasked  to  find 
individuals  that  have  a  generic  character  or  significance.  The 
defect  in  sacred  subjects  is,  that  they  must  be  draped,  and  thus 
do  not  admit  of  the  highest  achievement  in  sculpture,  which  is. 
to  exhibit  the  human  body  in  its  fullest  beauty  of  form  anc 
expression. 

SATURDAY,  April  1st. 

In  the  morning  we  visited  the  rooms  of  Mr.  Rosseter  and  Mr 


ST.  PETER'S  159 


Terry,  two  young  American  painters  of  promise,  and  walked 
about  the  Colosseum.  After  taking  a  last  look  at  the  beautiful 
resplendent  St.  Michael  of  Guido  in  the  Chapel  of  the  Capuchins, 
we  drove  to  see  the  drawing  of  the  lottery,  which  takes  place 
every  Saturday  at  noon  in  the  square  of  Monte  Citorio.  From  a 
balcony,  where  priests  presided,  the  numbers  were  drawn  to  the 
sound  of  music,  the  square  well  covered  with  people,  mostly  of 
the  working  classes.  In  the  afternoon,  after  taking  another  look 
at  Vallati's  Correggio,  we  walked  on  the  Pincian  Hill. 

SUNDAY,  April  2d. 

It  is  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  Seated  against  the  huge 
base  of  a  pilaster,  beneath  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's,  I  have  taken 
out  my  pencil  to  note  down  what  is  passing  around  me.  In  front, 
near  by,  directly  under  the  cupola,  in  the  centre  of  the  church, 
is  the  great  Altar,  beneath  which  in  the  vaults  is  the  tomb  of  St. 
Peter.  The  steps  that  lead  down  to  it  are  enclosed  by  a  marble 
balustrade,  round  which  burn  unceasingly  a  row  of  brazen  lamps. 
At  this  altar  service  is  performed  only  by  the  Pope  himself  or  a 
Cardinal.  Round  these  lights  is  a  favorite  spot  for  worshippers ; 
there  is  now  kneeling  a  circle  of  various  classes.  People  are 
walking,  lounging  or  chatting,  or  gazing  at  monuments  and  pic- 
tures. Across  the  great  nave  nearly  opposite  to  me,  is  a  little 
crowd  about  St.  Peter's  statue,  kissing  one  after  the  other  his 
oronze  toe.  Yonder  is  a  knot  of  soldiers.  A  group  of  three, 
the  middle  one  a  priest,  is  passing  me  in  lively  chat.  A  few 
yards  to  my  left  another  priest  is  on  his  knees ;  his  lips  move 
rapidly,  nor  are  his  eyes  idle,  nor  his  nose,  which  he  occupies 
with  snuff.  Here  come  a  couple  of  unkempt  artisans,  laughing. 
Yonder  a  white  poodle  is  rolling  himself  on  the  marble  floor,  and 
a  black  cur  is  trotting  up  to  interrogate  him.  From  under  one 
of  the  great  arches  is  issuing  a  procession  of  boys,  young  acolytes. 
They  crowd  up  to  St.  Peter's  statue,  kiss  the  toe,  pass  on,  kneel 


160  SCENES  AND  THOUGHTS  IN  EUROPE. 

for  a  few  moments  before  the  illuminated  sanctuary,  and  then 
disappear  in  the  distance.  Not  far  off  stand  three  priests  in  ani- 
mated talk.  Across  the  transept,  shines  down  obliquely  through 
a  lofty  arch,  an  immense  band  of  illuminated  dust,  denoting  the 
height  of  a  western  window.  I  raise  my  eyes  towards  the  dome  ; 
the  gigantic  mosaic  figures  on  its  rich  concave  are  dwarfed  like 
fir  trees  on  a  mountain.  Half  way  down  the  great  nave,  people 
I  are  standing  or  kneeling  a  little  closer,  for  service  is  going  on  in 
one  of  the  side  altars,  and  vespers  are  about  to  be  sung  in  a 
chapel  opposite.  Many  hundreds  of  visitors  and  worshippers 
mingled  together  are  in  the  church,  but  merely  dot  thinly  the 
area  whereon  tens  of  thousands  might  stand  at  ease. 

MONDAY,  April  3d. 

Mounted  in  the  morning  to  the  roof  and  to  the  top  of  the  dome 
of  St.  Peter's.  What  a  pulpit  whence  to  preach  a  sermon  on 
tne  lusts  of  power  and  gold ! 

In  the  afternoon  we  took  farewell  in  the  Vatican  of  the  Apollo 
and  his  inspired  companions.  In  the  evening  we  went  to  hear  an 
improvisatrice,  Madame  Taddei.  When  it  is  considered  that  this 
class  of  performers  study  for  years  their  business,  and  that  the 
Italian  language  runs  so  readily  into  verse,  the  performance  loses 
its  wonder.  Moreover,  the  imagination  has  such  scope,  that  they 
can  and  do  spin  off  a  subject  very  loosely. 

WEDNESDAY,  April  5th,  1843. 

We  left  Rome  at  ten  in  the  forenoon.  The  day  was  fine  ana 
our  faces  were  turned  homeward,  whence,  across  the  .sea,  blew  a 
fresh  breeze  as  we  approached  Civita  Vecchia. 


THE   END., 


